Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 478
12 Vict. cc. 28, 29.
12 Vict. cc. 38, 41, 63, 64.
12 Vict. c. 58.
12 Vict. c. 81.
12 Vict. c. 82.
See J. Loudon, History of the University of Toronto. Canada: an Encyclopædia, Vol. IV.
The faculty of divinity and the degree in divinity were now abolished, and the control of the university entirely withdrawn from the Church, except for the fact that the different denominational colleges were each entitled to a representative on the senate of the university. The system of government instituted was, indeed, cumbrous. Academic powers and the nominations to the professoriate were placed in the hands of a senate, consisting of a chancellor, vice-chancellor, the professors and twelve nominated members, — six chosen by the government, six by the denominational colleges. A further body called the caput, or council, made up of the president and deans of faculties, and certain others, exercised disciplinary powers. An endowment board, appointed jointly by the government, the senate, the caput, etc., managed the property of the university. Various other powers were vested in the faculties, the deans of faculties and in subordinate authorities. The elaborate regulation of the whole structure and the lack of elasticity in its organization were in marked contrast to the more simple provisions of the charter of King’s College. No religious tests for professoriate and students were to be imposed. It was further enacted that neither the chancellor nor any government representative on the senate should be a “minister, ecclesiastic or teacher, under or according to any form or profession of religious faith or worship.”
Provision was made under the Act for the incorporation in the University of Toronto of the denominational colleges. To obtain incorporation they were to forego their existing power of conferring degrees. As the colleges were unwilling to do this unless they were granted a share of the provincial endowment for their own teaching purposes, the scheme of consolidation failed. Victoria and Queen’s Universities remained upon their separate and sectarian bases, and thus one of the purposes of Baldwin’s Act was defeated. Moreover, a section of the adherents of the Anglican Church refused to countenance the new establishment. Bishop Strachan, who had denounced the godless iconoclasm of Baldwin’s previous University Bill, again headed the agitation against a secular university. Furious at the passage of the measure, he called upon the members of his Church to raise funds for a university of their own, headed the subscription himself with a contribution of five thousand dollars, and, undeterred by his advancing years, betook himself to England to obtain sympathy and help towards the foundation of an Anglican College. The result of his endeavours was the foundation of Trinity College in 1851.
The Municipal Corporations Act of 1849, commonly known as the Baldwin Act, constitutes another of the permanent political achievements of Robert Baldwin. Many years ago the Upper Canada Law Journal remarked of this Act and of the revision of the judicial system, “Had Mr. Baldwin never done more than enact our municipal and jury laws, he would have done enough to entitle his memory to the lasting respect of the inhabitants of this province. Neighbouring provinces are adopting the one and the other almost intact, as an embodiment of wisdom united with practical usefulness, equally noted for simplicity and for completeness of detail not to be found elsewhere.” Quite recently Professor Shortt has said, “Looking at the Baldwin Act in its historic significance, we must admit it to have been a most comprehensive and important measure, whose beneficial influence has been felt, not merely in Ontario, but more or less throughout the Dominion. . . . In all essential principles its spirit and purpose are embodied in our present municipal system.”
University of Toronto Studies: History and Economics, Vol. II. No. 2. Municipal Government in Ontario. The following account of the steps leading to the Baldwin Act is largely based on Professor Shortt’s admirable monograph.
The Baldwin Act represents the culmination and final triumph of the agitation for local self-government that had, for over fifty years, run a parallel course with the movement for responsible government. In the earlier years of Upper Canadian settlement, the government had been very chary of investing the settlers with rights of local management. Townships indeed existed, but these were merely areas plotted out by the surveyor for convenience in the allotment of land, and were not incorporated units of government. Nor was incorporation given to the districts or larger areas into which the province was subdivided. Even the villages and towns had at first no rights of self-government. The management of local affairs and the assessment of local taxes were left to the justices of the peace, sitting in quarter sessions, these being officers appointed by the governor and representing, of course, the solid cohesion of the governing class. The settlers, many of whom had been used to better things in their New England homes, constantly protested. At times they organized themselves in their townships on a voluntary basis. Various bills for giving power to the people of the townships, as such, were brought before the legislature, but met with a distrustful rejection at the hands of the governing oligarchy. Only a few unimportant matters — the election of petty officers, such as fence-viewers and pound-keepers — were handed over to the people.
The system thus established proved increasingly unjust and inconvenient: unjust, since it contributed to the privileges of the colonial aristocracy: inconvenient, especially in the growing towns where matters such as markets, fire protection, street-paving, etc., urgently demanded an organized municipal control. The pressure of the situation presently forced the government to grant some rights of self-government to the towns. A severe fire at Kingston in 1812 proved an object-lesson to a population that dwelt in wooden houses. An Act of parliament gave special powers to the magistrates in regard to Kingston, and an Act of a year later put York, Sandwich and Amherstburg upon the same footing. Belleville was presently granted the right to elect a police board, the first actual use of the democratic principle in town government. Brockville, after a long fight against the government, obtained an Act of parliament which set up the Brockville town board as a body corporate. The powers granted were limited, but the Act was a step in advance. A similar limited incorporation was extended to Hamilton, York and other towns (1832-4). Meantime the Reform party had vigorously taken up the cry for local self-government. Durham recommended in his Report “the establishment of a good system of municipal institutions throughout this province.” The Draper government, under Lord Sydenham, as has been seen, had endeavoured to enlist popular support by passing a Local Government Act (1841). But the fear of Tory opposition prevented Mr. Draper from doing more than incorporating the districts of Upper Canada with a partially elective government. It remained for Baldwin, in one comprehensive statute, to establish the entire system of local government in Upper Canada upon the democratic basis of popular election.
56 Geo. III. c. 33.
2 Will. IV. c. 17.
See p, 101, above.
The text of the Baldwin Act fills some fifty pages of the statute-book; but its ground plan is excellent in its logic and simplicity, and can be explained in a few words. The districts are abolished as areas of government in favour of counties with townships as their subdivisions. The township now became an incorporated body with power to construct highways, school buildings, etc. Its inhabitants elected five councillors, who appointed one of their number to be “reeve” of the township, and, in townships having a population of more than five hundred, another to be deputy-reeve. The reeves and deputy-reeves of the townships constituted the county council and elected from among themselves the “warden” of the county. The county council thus incorporated had authority over county roads, bridges and grammar schools, with other usual municipal powers. Within the area of the county the Act recognized also police villages, incorporated villages, towns and cities, representing an ascending series of corporate powers and a correspondingly increasing independence from the control of the county council. The police village was merely a hamlet to whose inhabitants the county committed the election of police trustees who should take steps to prevent fires, etc. An incorporate village was a body corporate with an elected council and a reeve, and practically on the same footing as a township. Still further powers were given to the town, with an elected council and a mayor and reeve chosen thereby. At the apex of urban government were placed the cities, Toronto, Hamilton and Kingston, and any others whose population should reach fifteen thousand. The city, with a mayor, aldermen and common councillors, constituted a county in itself, special powers being also delegated to it. Taken as a whole the Act is uniform in plan, excellent both in its fundamental principle and in the consistency of its detail; though frequently amended, it remains as the basis of local self-government in Ontario at the present day.
In addition to the University and Municipal Acts, Baldwin was also largely responsible for the Acts revising the judicial system of Upper Canada, creating a court of common pleas and a court of error and appeal, and freeing the court of chancery from the delays which had hitherto impaired its utility, by altering its procedure and increasing the number of its judges from one to three.
The allotment of legislative business among the leaders of the Reform party proceeded on the same lines as during the former ministry. While the political legislation was entrusted to Baldwin and LaFontaine, Hincks undertook the preparation of commercial and economic measures. These at the moment were of especial importance. The adoption of free trade by England had involved the loss of the preference enjoyed under earlier statutes by Canadian agricultural exports to the mother country. This had precipitated in Canada a severe commercial depression: the winter of 1848-9 had been a winter of discontent, and Lord Elgin had written home of the “downward progress of events.” A vigorous policy was needed in order to revive the industries of the country, and to this Hincks addressed himself with characteristic energy. Already various charters had been granted for the construction of railways in Canada: the road from LaPrairie to St. Johns (Quebec) had been built as early as 1837, and by the year 1848 a part of what afterwards became the Grand Trunk line from Montreal to Portland was already constructed, while work had been begun upon the Great Western and Northern Railways. Hincks, realizing the importance of the development of the Canadian transportation system, now inaugurated a policy of active governmental aid to railway construction. An Act of parliament guaranteed, for any railway of more than seventy-five miles in length, the payment of six per cent. interest on half the cost of its construction. Anxious at the same time to stimulate trade with the United States in order to compensate the country for the loss of its commercial privileges with Great Britain, Hincks endeavoured to bring about a system of reciprocal free trade in natural products between Canada and the republic. An Act of the legislature accordingly declared all duties on this class of imports to be removed as soon as the congress of the United States should take similar action. Unfortunately the opposition of the American senate interposed a long delay, and it was not until five years later that an international treaty at last brought the system of reciprocity into effect. Meantime the Customs Act of 1849 revised existing duties, altering many of them to an ad valorem basis and placing the average duty at about thirteen and one-quarter per cent.
The importance of this line lay in the fact that it connected the St. Lawrence navigation (through the Richelieu River) with that of Lake Champlain and the Hudson.
The legislative measures that fell to the share of LaFontaine were the political bills relating to Lower Canada. Here also the judicial system was amended, a court of queen’s bench being established with four judges of its own, and the superior court also undergoing a revision. A general law of amnesty gave effect to the intention of the Crown. An attempt to carry a bill for redistributing the seats in the legislature failed of its purpose. It was LaFontaine’s object to give to each province seventy-five instead of forty-two members, in order to permit a subdivision of the larger constituencies: the equality of representation between the two provinces was to be retained, although it was now evident that Upper Canada would soon surpass in population the lower section of the province. For a measure of this kind a majority of two-thirds was necessitated by the Act of Union. The opposition to the bill came from the Upper Canadian Tories and from Papineau and certain other French-Canadian Radicals, who insisted on carrying the democratic principle of equal representation to its full extent, even against the interests of their own nationality. LaFontaine’s measure fell short of the required two-thirds by one vote. Of far more importance was a measure now before parliament for whose introduction LaFontaine was responsible, and whose passage almost threatened to bring the country to a civil war. The Rebellion Losses Bill is, however, of such importance as to require a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER X
THE REBELLION LOSSES BILL
THE ACT OF Indemnification of 1849, or — to give it the name by which it was known during its passage through parliament and by which it is still remembered — the Rebellion Losses Bill, is of unparalleled importance in the history of Canada. The bill was a measure for the compensation of persons in Lower Canada whose property had suffered in the suppression of the rebellion of 1837 and 1838. It excited throughout Canada a furious opposition. It was denounced both in Canada and in England as a scheme for rewarding rebels. Its passage led to open riots in Montreal, to the invasion of the legislature by a crowd of malcontents, to the burning of the houses of parliament and to the mobbing of Lord Elgin in the streets of the city. These facts alone would have made it an episode of great prominence in the narrative of our history; but the bill is of still greater importance in the development of the constitution of Canada. The fact that in despite of the opposition of the Loyalists, in despite of the flood of counter-petitions and addresses, in despite of the imminent prospect of civil strife, Lord Elgin fulfilled his constitutional duty, refused to dissolve the parliament or to reserve the bill for the royal sanction, and that the home government accepted the situation and refused to interfere, shows that we have here arrived at the complete realization of colonial self-government. The passage of the Rebellion Losses Bill gives to the doctrine of the right of the people of the colony to manage their own affairs, the final seal of a general acceptance.
The circumstances leading to the introduction of the measure were as follows. The outbreak of 1837-8 had occasioned throughout the two provinces a very considerable destruction of private property. Some of this had been caused by the overt acts of the rebels; but there had also been a good deal of property destroyed, injured or confiscated by the troops and the Loyalists in the suppression of the rebellion.
It was, from the beginning, the intention of the government to make reparation to persons who had suffered damage from the acts of rebels. The parliament of Upper Canada had passed an Act (1 Vict. c. 13) appointing commissioners to estimate the damages, and had presently voted (2 Vict. c. 48) the issue of some four thousand pounds in debentures in payment of the claims. The special council of Lower Canada had taken similar action. But the question of damage done in suppressing the outbreak was of a somewhat different complexion. A part of the property destroyed was the property of persons actually in arms against the government. To these, plainly enough, no compensation was owing. In other cases the owners of injured property were adherents of the government, whose losses were occasioned either fortuitously or by the necessities of war. To these, equally clearly, a compensation ought to be paid. But between these two classes was a large number of persons whose property had suffered, who were not openly and provably rebels but who had belonged to the disaffected class, or who at any rate were identified in race and sympathy with the disaffected part of the population. This element gave to the equities of the question a very perplexed appearance.
In the last session of its existence the parliament of Upper Canada had adopted an Act (October 22nd, 1840) voting compensation on a large scale for damage done by the troops and otherwise. The sum of forty thousand pounds was to be applied to claims preferred under the Act. As no means were laid down for raising the necessary funds, this Act remained inoperative. Then followed the union of the Canadas and the election of a joint parliament. In despite of repeated petitions and individual representations to the government nothing more was done in regard to Rebellion Losses Claims until the year 1845 when the Draper government passed an Act to render operative the Upper Canadian statute of 1840.
3 Vict. c. 76.
The funds for the measure were to be supplied out of the receipts from tavern licenses for Upper Canada, which were set aside for that purpose. The sums collected under this Act of parliament between April 5th, 1845 and January 24th, 1849, amounted to £38,658.
At the time when Mr. Draper’s Act of 1845 was before parliament, the Reformers of Lower Canada protested against the inequity of extending to one section of the country a privilege not enjoyed by the other, and demanded similar legislation for Lower Canada. The government, presumably in order to obtain their support for its own measure, indicated its readiness to act upon this demand, and a unanimous address was presented to Lord Metcalfe (February 28th, 1845) asking him to institute an enquiry into the losses sustained in Lower Canada during the period of the insurrection. A commission consisting of five persons was accordingly appointed (November 24th, 1845). The commissioners were asked to distinguish between participants in the rebellion and persons innocent of complicity, but they were also informed that “the object of the executive government was merely to obtain a general estimate of the rebellion losses, the particulars of which should form the subject of more minute investigation thereafter under legislative authority.” The result was that the commission found themselves compelled to report that “the want of power to proceed to a strict and regular investigation of the losses in question left the commissioners no other resource than to trust to the allegation of the claimants as to the amount and nature of their losses.” Needless to say that, under the circumstances, many of the allegations in question were very wide of the truth: the total sum claimed amounted to over two hundred and forty thousand pounds, and of this it is said that about twenty-five thousand pounds represented claims of persons who had been convicted by court-martial of complicity in the rebellion. It will easily be understood that under these circumstances the cry arose from the Canadian Tories and their British sympathizers that the whole scheme amounted to nothing more than plundering the public treasury in favour of the disloyal. It was impossible for the government to take action upon a report of so unreliable a character. Indeed it is likely that the government was anxious merely to tide the matter over as best it might. It voted some ten thousand pounds in payment of claims that had been certified in Lower Canada before the union, and with that it let the matter rest.
