Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 480
While the tumult and destruction were still in progress, the cry was raised, “The parliament house is on fire.” The west end of the building, doubtless deliberately fired by the rioters, was soon a sheet of flames. The fire spread fiercely from room to room and from wing to wing of the building. “The fury and rapidity with which the flames spread,” said an eye-witness, “can hardly be imagined: in less than fifteen minutes the whole of the wing occupied by the House of Assembly was in flames, and, owing to the close connection between the two halls of the legislature, the chamber of the legislative council was involved in the same destruction.” The fierce light of the flames illuminated the city from the mountain to the river, and spread fear in the hearts of its inhabitants. The firemen who arrived on the scene were forcibly held back from staying the progress of the fire, and the houses of the parliament of Canada burned fiercely to ruin. The assembly library of twenty thousand volumes perished in the flames. MacNab, with characteristic loyalty, rescued from the burning building the portrait of his beloved queen. The military, at length arrived on the ground, stayed the progress of further violence, but the wild excitement that pervaded the populace of the city boded further trouble. Next evening the riots broke out again. Attacks were made on the houses of Hincks and Wolfred Nelson. The boarding house on St. Antoine Street, occupied by Baldwin and Price, was assaulted with a shower of stones: LaFontaine’s residence — a new house which he had just purchased, but where he was fortunately not at that moment in residence — was attacked, the furniture demolished, and the stables given to the flames. Not until the evening of the twenty-seventh did the troops, aided by a thousand special constables armed with cutlasses and pistols, succeed in restoring order to the streets.
Three days later the governor-general, attempting to drive into the city from his residence, where he had remained since the twenty-fifth, was again attacked. As he passed through the streets on his way to the government offices in the Château de Ramezay on Notre Dame Street, volleys of stones and other missiles greeted the progress of his carriage. Before reaching his destination Lord Elgin found his way blocked with a howling, furious crowd, while shouts of “Down with the governor-general” urged the mob to violence. The governor’s escort of troops succeeded in forcing back the crowd and effecting his entrance into the building, but his return journey was converted into a precipitate flight, the crowd pursuing the vice-regal carriage in “cabs, calèches and everything that would run.” Fortunately Lord Elgin escaped unhurt, but his brother was severely injured by a stone hurled after the carriage and several of his escort were hurt. Such were the disgraceful scenes which lost for Montreal the dignity of being the seat of government.
It was but natural that the progress of events in Canada should excite great attention in the mother country. In the British parliament, the government of Lord John Russell was prepared to defend the right of the Canadians to legislate as they pleased in regard to the matter at issue. Mr. Roebuck and the Radicals went even further and defended the equity of the bill itself. The Peelites, or at any rate the greater part of them, voted with the government against interference. But the thorough-going Tories insisted on viewing the issue as one between loyalty and treason, and demanded that the imperial government should either disallow the Act or contravene its operation by an Act of the British parliament. In the middle of the month of June the Canadian question was debated both in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords. Not the least important of those who appeared as the champions of the Canadian Tories was Mr. Gladstone. His rising reputation, the especial attention he had devoted to colonial questions, and the fact that he had been Lord Stanley’s successor as colonial secretary in the cabinet of Sir Robert Peel, combined to render him a formidable adversary to the Canadian ministry. His speech on the Rebellion Losses Act shows his usual marvellous command of detail and powers of presentation. Mr. Gladstone’s great objection to the Canadian statute was that, in his opinion, a large number of virtual rebels would receive compensation under its operation: he begged that Lord John Russell’s government would either disallow the Act or obtain from the Canadian parliament an amendment of its provisions which should place the compensation on a basis more strictly defined. But what is still more noticeable in Mr. Gladstone’s speech is his opinion that the government had allowed Lord Elgin too great latitude in the matter, and that the scope of the Act exceeded the proper limits of colonial power. “It might not be politic for the colonial secretary,” he said, “to interpose his advice in respect to merely local matters, but it was his first duty to tender his advice regarding measures which involved not only imperial rights but the honour of the Crown. That advice ought not to be delayed until a measure assumed the form of a statute, but should be given at the first possible moment, and before public opinion was appealed to in the country.”
Roebuck, Disraeli and others participated in the debate and a certain Mr. Cochrane, representing the outraged patriotism of the extreme Tories, referred in scathing terms to Baldwin and LaFontaine, speaking of them as fugitives from justice in the days of the rebellion.
The speech of Mr. Gladstone on the Canadian question is of especial importance in the present narrative in that it called forth an answer from the pen of Francis Hincks, in the form of a letter to the London Times. Shortly after the passage of the indemnification bill Hincks had left Montreal (May 14th, 1849) for England. The object of his visit was, in the first place, of a financial character, the Canadian government being anxious to negotiate its securities in the London market. But the inspector-general acted also as a special envoy to the imperial cabinet in regard to the great question of the day and discussed the Rebellion Losses question with Lord John Russell and Earl Grey. Hincks also conversed on the subject in detail with Mr. Gladstone who found himself unable to adopt the views of the Canadian minister.
London Times, June 20th, 1849.
In his letter to the Times, Hincks deals at some length with Mr. Gladstone’s arguments in regard to the “payment of rebels.” In the debates in the recent session of the Canadian parliament, Hincks had said that certain persons convicted of high treason in Upper Canada had received compensation under the Upper Canada Rebellion Losses Act, which was carried into effect by Tory commissioners under instructions from a Tory government. Both Disraeli and Gladstone had dissented from this. Disraeli had broadly asserted that there had been no rebels in Upper Canada, and that consequently no restrictive clauses were necessary in the Act for that section of the province. Gladstone had said that “there was no ground to suppose that any rebel had received any sum by way of compensation.” Hincks, by a very accurate citation of individual cases, shows that there were rebels in Upper Canada and that some of them, at any rate, had received compensation under the Act. Hincks does not mean to imply that, as a consequence of this, the government should expressly seek to reward the rebels of the Lower Province. “I do not of course mean to contend that, if it be wrong rebels should be compensated for their losses, the fact that they were so compensated in Upper Canada is any excuse for the Lower Canada Act. But I do contend that it is highly discreditable to a party which, when in power, admitted claims of this description without the slightest complaint, to agitate the entire province, to get up an excitement which they themselves are unable to control, because their opponents have introduced a measure much more stringent in its details, but under which it is possible that some parties suspected or accused of treason, but never convicted, may be paid.”
The letter concludes with some interesting paragraphs in which the writer discusses the strictures that had been passed in the course of the debate in the House of Commons upon the leaders of the Canadian ministry. “Nothing can be more untrue,” writes Hincks, “than the allegation that any member of the present administration was implicated in the rebellion. No reward was ever offered for the apprehension of anyone of them. Mr. Baldwin never was a fugitive from justice. Such absurd statements as I have heard regarding occurrences in Canada, only prove that it is very unsafe for parties at a distance of three thousand miles to interfere in our affairs. I confess, however, that I was not very sorry that the members of the House of Commons had an opportunity afforded them of hearing at least one speech in the true Canadian Tory spirit, as they are enabled to judge of the manner in which the passions of the mob of Montreal were inflamed.”
See especially the speech of Mr. B. Cochrane (London Times, June 15th, 1849) and his reference to Baldwin, LaFontaine, Papineau, and the “arch-traitor Mackenzie.”
“Let me, in conclusion,” wrote Hincks, “say a word or two regarding ‘French domination.’ I should imagine that the author of Coningsby [Mr. Disraeli] understands the meaning of getting up a ‘good cry’ to serve party purposes. The cry of the Canadian Tory party is ‘French domination,’ and it is especially intended to excite the sympathy of people in England who understand little about our politics, but who are naturally inclined to sympathize with a British party governed by French influence. A little reflection would convince them that ‘French domination’ cannot exist in the united province. I need scarcely say that it is wholly untrue that it does exist. The administration consists of five members from Upper Canada and five from Lower Canada. The former represent some of the most important constituencies in Upper Canada. If the administration of the government or of the legislature were made subservient to French influence, is it probable, I would ask, that the government would be supported by the British people of Upper Canada? All I shall say in conclusion is, that I claim for myself and my colleagues from Upper Canada — and in truth and justice I should say for my Lower Canadian colleagues also — that we have as much true British feeling as any member of that party which seems to wish to monopolize it.”
The financial purpose of Hincks’s visit to England — the strengthening of the credit of the colony in the London market — was accomplished with marked success. The inspector-general realized that the agitation occasioned by recent events, and the pervading ignorance in reference to the economic position and prospects of Canada, seriously prejudiced the securities of the province in the eyes of the British investors. To meet this situation, Hincks prepared and published in London a pamphlet entitled, Canada and its Financial Resources. In this publication he shows that the money hitherto borrowed by the Canadian government had been employed in public works of a sound and reproductive character. The imperial guarantee loan of £1,500,000 and the issue of provincial debentures of a somewhat larger sum make a gross total of £3,223,839, and represent the larger part of the cost of the public works of the province, the total cost being estimated by Hincks at £3,703,781 sterling. In order to show the utility and profitableness of the expenditure thus made, Hincks composed a series of tables showing the growth and progress of the colony for the last twenty-five years. The population of Upper Canada had risen, between 1824 and 1848, from 151,097 to 723,000 inhabitants: Lower Canada, whose population in 1825 had stood at 423,630, now contained 766,000 souls. The land under cultivation in Upper Canada had increased during the same period from 535,212 to 2,673,820 acres: the yield of local taxation in Upper Canada had increased from £10,235 to £86,058; while the estimated revenue for the united province in the current year stood at £574,640, a sum whose proportion to the public debt showed the stable condition of the provincial finances. Although financial and fiscal discussion forms the major part of Hincks’s pamphlet, he deals also with the political situation, reasserts the essential loyalty of the Reform party, urges the necessity for the further development of the province and calls for imperial aid in the building of an intercolonial railway. The effect of this pamphlet and of the series of letters of a similar character which Hincks contributed to the Daily Mail in the following August, was most happy. An increasing confidence on the part of the British public in the financial soundness of the Canadian government, tended to offset the unfortunate effect produced by the agitation over the Act of Indemnification.
The attitude of Lord Elgin in regard to the Rebellion Losses Bill has been much discussed. At the time of the adoption of the measure his conduct was made the subject of mistaken censure from various quarters. He was blamed for not having refused his assent to the bill: he was blamed for not having dissolved the parliament: he was blamed for having afterwards remained for weeks at “Monklands” without having insisted on forcing his way into the city under military protection. But time has justified his conduct in every respect. One must read the journals of the time to appreciate how much the governor-general was called upon to bear, and with what grave responsibility the office of constitutional head of the country becomes invested in moments of danger. The Tory press was filled with bitter personal attacks. “This man’s father,” said the Montreal Courier, “was denounced by the noblest bard, but one, that England ever produced, as the Robber of the Greek Temples; his son will be heard of in future times as the man who lost for England the noble colony won by the blood of Wolfe.” Compare with this the utterance of Lord Elgin made at the same time. “I am prepared to bear any amount of obloquy that may be cast upon me, but, if I can possibly prevent it, no stain of blood shall rest upon my name.”
The reference is, of course, to the collection of the Elgin marbles.
In his treatment of the Rebellion Losses Bill and his firm conviction that it was his duty to give his assent, Lord Elgin achieved for Canada one of the greatest victories of its constitutional progress. “By reserving the bill,” wrote Lord Elgin afterwards, “I should only throw on Her Majesty’s government a responsibility which rests, and I think, ought to rest, on me. . . . If I had dissolved parliament, I might have produced a rebellion, but assuredly I should not have procured a change of ministry.” As the sight of flame and the sound of riot drifts into the past, a momentous achievement appears written large on the surface of our history by Lord Elgin’s acceptance of the Act of Indemnification. It signified that, from now on, the government of Canada, whether conducted ill or well, was at least to be conducted by the people — the majority of the people — of Canada itself. The history of responsible government in our country reaches here its culmination.
CHAPTER XI
THE END OF THE MINISTRY
THE STORY OF responsible government, with which the present volume is mainly concerned, practically ends, as has just been said, with the passage of the Rebellion Losses Bill. The history of the concluding sessions of the LaFontaine-Baldwin administration, of the disintegration of the ministry and of the reconstruction of the Reform government under Hincks and Morin, belongs elsewhere. It has, moreover, already received ample treatment in other volumes of the present series. We are here approaching the days of the Clear Grits, of Radicals breaking from Reformers, of a Parti Rouge, of recrudescent Toryism and the political match-making of the coalition era. But some brief account of the decline and end of the LaFontaine-Baldwin administration may here be appended.
See Sir J. Bourinot, Lord Elgin, and John Lewis, George Brown.
Union in opposition is notoriously easier than union in office. Opposition is a negative function, the work of government is positive. It was but natural, therefore, that with the accession of the Reform party to power and the definite acceptance of the great principle which had held them together, differences of opinion which had been held in abeyance during the struggle for power, now began to make themselves felt. The Reformers were by profession a party of progress, and it was natural that some among them should aim at a more rapid rate of advance than others. “It cannot be expected,” wrote Hincks, reviewing in later days the period before us, “that there will be the same unanimity among the members of a party of progress as in one formed to resist organic changes: in the former there will always be a section dissatisfied with what they think the inertness of their leaders.”
Political History, .
Moreover, the great upheaval of the Rebellion Losses agitation tended to throw into a strong light all existing differences of opinion and to intensify political feeling. The movement towards annexation with the United States in the summer of 1849, which led a number of the British residents of Montreal to sign a manifesto in its favour, was doubtless dictated as much by political spite as by serious conviction. But it is characteristic, none the less, of the precipitating influence exercised upon the formation of parties by the great agitation. In addition to this, the recent events in Europe — chartism and the repeal movement in the British Isles, and the democratic revolutions on the continent — gave a strong impulse to the doctrines of Radicalism, and at the same time repelled many people from the party of progress and directed them towards the party of order and stability. The years of the mid-century were consequently an era in which the formation and movements of parties were modified under new and powerful impulses.
Sir John Abbott speaking in the senate in 1889 said that the “annexation manifesto was the outburst of a movement of petulance.” See also J. Pope, Life of Sir John A. Macdonald, Vol. I., .
