Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 464
In this delicate situation the government attempted a middle course. The provisions of the bill permitted the inhabitants of the districts of Upper Canada to form themselves into municipal bodies. Councillors were to be elected in each district, but the warden, the treasurer and the clerk, were to be nominated by the Crown. The bill as thus drawn had the disadvantage which attends all measures of compromise; it met with opponents on both sides. Mr. Viger, on behalf of the French-Canadians, entered an energetic protest on the ground that Upper Canada was unduly favoured. “I will express myself,” he said, “as sufficiently selfish to oppose such great advantages being accorded to the Upper Canadians alone.” Robert Baldwin and the generality of his following objected, on the ground that the advantages conferred were not sufficiently great and that all the municipal offices ought to be made elective.
Turcotte, Le Canada sous l’Union, p, 99.
Here again Hincks found himself compelled to differ from his leader and, in a speech of considerable power, undertook to defend this course in regard to the bill, and to free himself from the charges of desertion now brought against him by his fellow Reformers. To him it seemed that half a loaf was better than no bread. He would have preferred that local elective government might also have been conceded to Lower Canada, but if this could not be obtained he saw no reason to deny it to Upper Canada on that account. He would have preferred that all the offices should have been elective, but he was willing, in default of this, to accept the modified self-government granted by the bill. “I acknowledge myself,” he said, “to be a party man, and that I have ever been most anxious to act in concert with that political party to which I have been long and zealously attached.... I have been held up in public prints as having sold myself to the government. From political opponents I can expect nothing else but such attacks, but, sir, I confess I have been pained at the insinuations which have proceeded from other quarters.... I can assert that my vote in favour of this bill is as conscientious and independent as that of any honourable member on the floor of this House.”
Baldwin, in rising to reply, denied that he had had any share in originating, repeating, or sanctioning any insinuations against Mr. Hincks’s behaviour towards the party. The means of demonstrating the groundlessness of such insinuations rested with Mr. Hincks himself. He assured the honourable member for Oxford that if a time should come when the political tie which bound them to each other was to be severed forever, it would be to him by far the most painful event which had occurred in the course of his political life. Nevertheless, in spite of these words of conciliation, the temporary breach occasioned by the divergent policy of the leaders of the Upper Canadian Reformers tended to widen. Hincks, with the best of motives, was drawn towards the practical programme of the government. He not only voted with them on the question of public works and municipal institutions, but took issue with his leader also in the votes on the usury laws, the Upper Canadian roads and other matters. His services on the special committee in regard to currency and banking still further commended him to the government as a political expert, of whose services the country ought not to be deprived.
To meet the charges now freely brought against him in the liberal press, Hincks published in his Examiner a letter (September 15th, 1841) in which he fully explains the motives of his conduct. “The formation of a new ministry on the declared principle of acting in concert having failed, all parties were compelled to look to the measures of the administration, and we can now declare that, previous to the session of parliament, our opinion was given repeatedly and decidedly, that in the event of failure to obtain such an administration as would be entirely satisfactory, the policy of the Reform party was to give to the administration such a support as would enable it to carry out liberal measures which we had no doubt would be brought forward.” In the face of so consistent an explanation the charges brought against Hincks of having “sold himself to the government” and of “having ratted from his party” fell entirely to the ground. The support of Hincks, and of four French-Canadian members of like mind, enabled the government to carry the municipal bill by a narrow majority. The question of a more extended form of local self-government remained, however, in the foreground of the Reform programme, and received no final settlement until the passage of the statute known as the Baldwin Act in 1849.
The expression is quoted by Major Richardson, Eight Years in Canada (1847), from a virulent Montreal article in which Hincks is called an “adder,” and his career a “libel on colonial politics.”
The Act for the establishment of a system of common schools passed both Houses of parliament with but little opposition. The people of Upper Canada were firm believers in the advantages of public education. Especially was this the case with those who came of Loyalist stock, and among whom the traditions of New England still survived. Until this period, however, no successful attempt had been made to establish a general system of elementary schools. The government of the province had committed the mistake of beginning at the wrong end of the scale, and ambitious attempts to institute grammar schools and secondary colleges had preceded any efforts towards the education of the mass of the people. Governor Simcoe, eager to extend to his Loyalist settlers the advantages that their forefathers had enjoyed in Massachusetts or Connecticut, planned the institution of a university at York, with grammar schools at Cornwall, Kingston, Newark and Sandwich, a proposal which failed of adoption. A little later, however, (1807) grammar schools were instituted in each of the eight districts of the province. These were supplemented by private schools, such as those of Dr. Strachan and Dr. Baldwin mentioned above. But to the generality of the people these advanced schools were of no utility, and the settlers were forced to rely on their own efforts and on spontaneous coöperation for the teaching of their children.
N. Burwash, Egerton Ryerson (Makers of Canada Series), p et seq.
Not until 1816 was the attempt made to organize by an Act of the legislature a system of elementary schools. Under this Act the people of any locality might organize themselves for the building and maintenance of a school, for whose management they elected three of their number as trustees. A general grant of funds was made by the legislature in aid of schools thus organized, while in every district a board of education appointed by the lieutenant-governor exercised a general supervision over the trustees of each school. This statute had been supplemented by further legislation in the same direction, providing for the institution of a provincial board and for district examination of teachers. The intention of these statutes had been better than their operation. Neither attendance at schools nor local taxation in support of them had been made compulsory, and a large majority of the children of the province were still without adequate education. Day, the solicitor-general of Lower Canada, in introducing the measure, stated that not more than one child out of eighteen was in attendance at the existing elementary schools to whose support the government contributed. In Lower Canada the condition of things was still less advanced. There existed as yet “no legal establishment, no provision of the law by which the people could obtain access to education.” Such schools as existed were private establishments founded and supported in great measure by the Church. The secondary colleges of this kind were sufficiently numerous and efficient, but of elementary schools, especially in the rural parts of the country, there was a sad lack.
Acts of 1820, 1823, 1824.
The present law provided an annual grant of two hundred thousand dollars for primary schools, — eighty thousand for Upper Canada, one hundred and twenty thousand for the Lower Province. It enacted that the district council in each district should act as a board of education, distributing the annual government grant, assessing on the inhabitants of the different school districts the sums necessary for the erection of new schools. Within each of these school areas a board of commissioners was to be elected who should act as the trustees of the school, appointing the teacher and regulating the course of study. A fee of one shilling and three pence per month was to be exacted for each child in attendance, save in cases of extreme poverty. The principal objections raised to the bill as first drafted turned on the question of religious instruction. A great number of petitions were presented to the assembly praying that the Bible should be adopted as a book of instruction in the elementary school curriculum. To meet the views of the petitioners a separate school clause was added to the Act, whereby inhabitants possessing a religious faith different from that of the majority, might establish and maintain a school of their own and receive a proportion of the government grant.
4 and 5 Vict., c. 18.
4 and 5 Vict., c. 18, sec. XI.
In spite of the success of their practical policy, the session was not destined to end in unqualified victory for the administration. On September 3rd, (1841) Baldwin presented to the assembly a series of resolutions affirming the principle of responsible government. The government succeeded in voting down the resolutions in the form in which they were presented, but only at the price of substituting for them a set of resolutions almost equivalent. These resolutions, hereafter associated with the name of Robert Baldwin, stand as the definite achievement of the United Reformers in their first constitutional struggle under the union. They read as follows:
Journal of the Legislative Assembly, Vol. I., September 3rd, 1841, p, 481.
1. “That the most important, as well as most undoubted, of the political rights of the people of this province is that of having a provincial parliament for the protection of their liberties, for the exercise of a constitutional influence over the executive departments of their government, and for legislation upon all matters of internal government.”
Baldwin’s resolution had ended.... “legislation upon all matters which do not, on the grounds of absolute necessity, constitutionally belong to the jurisdiction of the imperial parliament as the paramount authority of the legislature.”
2. “That the head of the executive government of the province being, within the limits of his government, the representative of the sovereign, is responsible to the imperial authority alone; but that, nevertheless, the management of our local affairs can only be conducted by him, by and with the assistance, counsel and information of subordinate officers in the province.”
Baldwin’s resolution had read.... “is not constitutionally responsible to any other than the authorities of the empire.” The meaning is that the governor is properly to be considered dissociated from the party government of the province.
3. “That in order to preserve between the different branches of the provincial parliament that harmony which is essential to the peace, welfare and good government of the province, the chief advisers of the representative of the sovereign, constituting a provincial administration under him, ought to be men possessed of the confidence of the representatives of the people, thus affording a guarantee that the well-understood wishes and interests of the people, which our gracious sovereign has declared shall be the rule of the provincial government, will, on all occasions, be faithfully represented and advocated.”
Baldwin’s resolution read: “That in order to preserve that harmony between the different branches of the provincial parliament which is essential to the happy conduct of public affairs, the principal of such subordinate officers, advisers of the representative of the sovereign, and constituting as such the provincial administration under him, as the head of the provincial government, ought always to be men possessed of the public confidence, whose opinions and policy harmonizing with those of the representatives of the people, would afford a guarantee that the well-understood wishes and interests of the people, which our gracious sovereign has declared shall be the rule of the provincial government, will at all times be faithfully represented to the head of that government and through him to the sovereign and imperial parliament.”
4. “That the people of this province, have, moreover, a right to expect from such provincial administration the exertion of their best endeavours that the imperial authority, within its constitutional limits, shall be exercised in the manner most consistent with their wishes and interests.”
Baldwin’s resolution was a much more direct affirmation of principle. It read: “That as it is practically always optional with such advisers to continue in or retire from office, at pleasure, this House has the constitutional right of holding such advisers politically responsible for every act of the provincial government of a local character, sanctioned by such government while such advisers continue in office.”
It is said that the resolutions in their final form were drafted by Lord Sydenham himself. It would be difficult to say just what would have been the scope of their operation had that energetic and purposeful nobleman remained at the head of Canadian affairs. But his melancholy and untimely death, just as the session came to a close, gave a new turn to the current of history and rendered it possible for those who had opposed his administration to put into operation the principles of government whose validity he had conceded. A fall from his horse (September 4th, 1841) resulted in injuries which proved too much for his constitution, already enfeebled by the severity of his labours, to withstand. He lingered for a fortnight, his mind still busied with public cares, worn out with insomnia and racked with unceasing suffering. On the seventeenth of the month, while the governor-general was hovering between life and death, the parliament was prorogued in his name by the officer commanding the forces at Kingston. On Sunday, September 19th, Lord Sydenham breathed his last. His memory has been variously judged. A well-known French-Canadian historian has denounced the “political tyranny which he exercised against the Liberals of the population,” and has spoken of his “hand of iron” pressed heavily upon French Canada. A British-Canadian historian of prominence ha called him the “merchant pacificator of Canada,” and ranked his achievements with those of Wolfe and Brock. But all are united in testifying to his untiring zeal, his wide range of knowledge and the integrity of his personal character.
Turcotte, Le Canada sous l’Union, .
John McMullen, History of Canada, (1868), .
CHAPTER V
THE FIRST LAFONTAINE-BALDWIN MINISTRY
THE SUDDEN DEATH of Lord Sydenham occasioned an interregnum in the government of the province, during which time the administration was carried on under Sir Richard Jackson, commander of Her Majesty’s forces in Canada. On October 7th, 1841, a new governor-general was appointed in the person of Sir Charles Bagot, who arrived at Kingston on Monday, January 10th, 1842. The news of his appointment had been the subject of a premature jubilation on the part of the thorough-going Tories of the MacNab faction. The nominee of the Tory government of Sir Robert Peel, and himself known for a Tory of the old school, Sir Charles was expected to restore to Canada an atmosphere of official conservatism which should recall the serener days of the Family Compact. The sequel showed that Sir Charles was prepared to do nothing of the kind. He was, indeed, a Tory, but his long parliamentary and diplomatic training had stood him in good stead. As an under-secretary of state for foreign affairs and on diplomatic missions at Paris, Washington and St. Petersburg, he had learned the value of the ways of peace. At the Hague, whither he had been sent in connection with the recent disruption of the kingdom of the Netherlands, he had already had to face the problem of rival religions and hostile races. The natural affability and kindness of his temperament, combined with the enlightened wisdom of advancing years, led him to seek rather to conciliate existing differences than to inflame anew the smouldering embers of partisan animosity. Devoid of the personal egotism which had so often converted colonial governors into “domineering proconsuls,” Sir Charles was willing to entrust the task of practical government to the hands most able to undertake it. For the role of pacificator, the new governor-general was well suited. His distinguished bearing and upright carriage, and the ease with which he mingled with all classes of colonial society rapidly assured him in the province a personal esteem destined greatly to facilitate that conciliation of rival parties which it was his hope to accomplish.
It only remained for Bagot to find, among the political groups which divided his parliament, a party, or a union of parties, strong enough to enable him to carry on the government on these lines. As the parliament was not summoned for eight months after his arrival, Sir Charles had ample time to look about him and to consider the political situation which he was called upon to face. Visits to Toronto, Montreal and Quebec brought him into contact with the political leaders of the hour, and enabled him to realize that, with the ministry as it at the moment existed, it would not be possible long to carry on the government. Indeed the Draper ministry had owed its continued existence solely to the recognized value of certain of the measures which it had initiated. It had enjoyed a sort of political armistice, at the close of which a renewed and triumphant onslaught of its opponents might naturally be expected. In particular the new governor realized that it would be impossible to carry on the government of the country without an adequate support from the French-Canadians. He made it, therefore, his aim from the outset to adopt towards them an attitude of friendliness and confidence. Several important appointments to office were made from among their ranks. Judge Vallières, one of Sir John Colborne’s former antagonists, was made chief-justice of Montreal; Dr. Meilleur, a French-Canadian scholar of distinction, became superintendent of public instruction. As a result of this policy Bagot was greeted in Lower Canada with signal enthusiasm and his memory has still an honoured place in the annals of the province.
