[[1]] Address to Canadian Club, Ottawa, 1906.
[[2]] Union of the Colonies, by P. S. Hamilton, Halifax, 1864.
[[3]] See the chapter, 'Parties and Politics, 1840-1867,' by J. L. Morison, in Canada and its Provinces, vol. v.
CHAPTER III
THE EVE OF CONFEDERATION
A day of loftier ideas and greater issues in all the provinces was about to dawn. The ablest politicians had been prone to wrangle like washerwomen over a tub, colouring the parliamentary debates by personal rivalry and narrow aims, while measures of first-rate importance went unheeded. The change did not occur in the twinkling of an eye, for the cherished habits of two generations were not to be discarded so quickly. Goldwin Smith asserted[[1]] that, whoever laid claim to the parentage of Confederation, the real parent was Deadlock. But this was the critic, not the historian, who spoke. The causes lay far deeper than in the breakdown of party government in Canada. Events of profound significance were about to change an atmosphere overladen with partisanship and to strike the imaginations of men.