[11] The personal annoyance which he felt on this occasion was only a phase of the indignation which was often roused in him, by seeing the interests and feelings of the colony made the sport of party-speakers and party-writers at home; and important transactions in the province distorted and misrepresented, so as to afford ground for an attack, in the British Parliament, on an obnoxious Minister.—Vide Infra, p. 113.
[12] 'A knowledge' wrote Sir F. Bruce, 'of what he was, and of the results he in consequence achieved, would be an admirable text on which to engraft ideas of permanent value on this most important question;' as helping to show 'that to reduce education to stuffing the mind with facts is to dwarf the intelligence, and to reverse the natural process of the growth of man's mind; that the knowledge of principles, as the means of discrimination, and the criterion of those individual appreciations which are fallaciously called facts, ought to be the end of high education.'
CHAPTER IV.
CANADA.
DISCONTENT—REBELLION LOSSES BILL—OPPOSITION TO IT—NEUTRALITY OF THE GOVERNOR—RIOTS AT MONTREAL—FIRMNESS OF THE GOVERNOR—APPROVAL OF HOME GOVERNMENT—FRESH RIOTS—REMOVAL OF SEAT OF GOVERNMENT FROM MONTREAL—FORBEARANCE OF LORD ELGIN—RETROSPECT.
[Sidenote: Commercial depression.]
The winter of 1848 passed quietly; but the commercial depression, which was then everywhere prevalent, weighed heavily on Canada, more especially on the Upper Province. In one of his letters Lord Elgin caught himself, so to speak, using the words, 'the downward progress of events.' He proceeds:—
The downward progress of events! These are ominous words. But look at the facts. Property in most of the Canadian towns, and more especially in the capital, has fallen fifty per cent. in value within the last three years. Three-fourths of the commercial men are bankrupt, owing to Free-trade; a large proportion of the exportable produce of Canada is obliged to seek a market in the States. It pays a duty of twenty per cent. on the frontier. How long can such a state of things be expected to endure?
Depend upon it, our commercial embarrassments are our real difficulty. Political discontent, properly so called, there is none. I really believe no country in the world is more free from it. We have, indeed, national antipathies hearty and earnest enough. We suffer, too, from the inconvenience of having to work a system which is not yet thoroughly in gear. Reckless and unprincipled men take advantage of these circumstances to work into a fever every transient heat that affects the public mind. Nevertheless, I am confident I could carry Canada unscathed through all these evils of transition, and place the connection on a surer foundation than ever, if I could only tell the people of the province that as regards the conditions of material prosperity, they would be raised to a level with their neighbours. But if this be not achieved, if free navigation and reciprocal trade with the Union be not secured for us, the worst, I fear, will come, and that at no distant day.
[Sidenote: Political discontent.]