The first ministry after that change was composed of Conservatives and moderate Liberals, but it was soon entirely controlled by the former, and never had the confidence of Mr. Baldwin. That eminent statesman had been a member of this administration at the time of the union, but he resigned on the ground that it ought to be reconstructed if it was to represent the true sentiment of the country at large. When Sir Charles Bagot became governor the Conservatives were very sanguine that they would soon obtain exclusive control of the government, as he was known to be a supporter of the Conservative party in England. It was not long, however, before it was evident that his administration would be conducted, not in the interests of any set of politicians, but on principles of compromise and justice to all political parties, and, above all, with the hope of conciliating the French Canadians and bringing them into harmony with the new conditions. One of his first acts was the appointment of an eminent French Canadian, M. Vallières de Saint-Réal, to the chief-justiceship of Montreal. Other appointments of able French Canadians to prominent public positions evoked the ire of the Tories, then led by the Sherwoods and Sir Allan MacNab, who had taken a conspicuous part in putting down the rebellion of 1837-8. Sir Charles Bagot, however, persevered in his policy of attempting to stifle racial prejudices and to work out the principles of responsible government on broad national lines. He appointed an able Liberal and master of finance, Mr. Francis Hincks, to the position of inspector-general with a seat in the cabinet. The influence of the French Canadians in parliament was now steadily increasing, and even strong Conservatives like Mr. Draper were forced to acknowledge that it was not possible to govern the province on the principle that they were an inferior and subject people, whose representatives could not be safely entrusted with any responsibilities as ministers of the crown. Negotiations for the entrance of prominent French Canadians in opposition to the government went on without result for some time, but they were at last successful, and the first LaFontaine-Baldwin cabinet came into existence in 1842, largely through the instrumentality of Sir Charles Bagot. Mr. Baldwin was a statesman whose greatest desire was the success of responsible government without a single reservation. Mr. LaFontaine was a French Canadian who had wisely recognized the necessity of accepting the union he had at first opposed, and of making responsible government an instrument for the advancement of the interests of his compatriots and of bringing them into unison with all nationalities for the promotion of the common good. The other prominent French Canadian in the ministry was Mr. A.N. Morin, who possessed the confidence and respect of his people, but was wanting in the energy and ability to initiate and press public measures which his leader possessed.
The new administration had not been long in office when the governor-general fell a victim to an attack of dropsy, complicated by heart disease, and was succeeded by Sir Charles Metcalfe, who had held prominent official positions in India, and was governor of Jamaica previous to Lord Elgin's appointment. No one who has studied his character can doubt the honesty of his motives or his amiable qualities, but his political education in India and Jamaica rendered him in many ways incapable of understanding the political conditions of a country like Canada, where the people were determined to work out the system of parliamentary government on strictly British principles. He could have obtained little assistance from British statesmen had he been desirous of mastering and applying the principles of responsible government to the dependency. Their opinions and instructions were still distinguished by a perplexing vagueness. They would not believe that a governor of a dependency could occupy exactly the same relation with respect to his responsible advisers and to political parties as is occupied with such admirable results by the sovereign of England. It was considered necessary that a governor should make himself as powerful a factor as possible in the administration of public affairs—that he should be practically the prime minister, responsible, not directly to the colonial legislature, but to the imperial government, whose servant he was and to whom he should constantly refer for advice and assistance whenever in his opinion the occasion arose. In other words it was almost impossible to remove from the mind of any British statesman, certainly not from the colonial office of those days, the idea that parliamentary government meant one thing in England and the reverse in the colonies, that Englishmen at home could be entrusted with a responsibility which it was inexpedient to allow to Englishmen or Frenchmen across the sea. The colonial office was still reluctant to give up complete control of the local administration of the province, and wished to retain a veto by means of the governor, who considered official favour more desirable than the approval of any colonial legislature. More or less imbued with such views, Sir Charles Metcalfe was bound to come into conflict with LaFontaine and Baldwin, who had studied deeply the principles and practice of parliamentary government, and knew perfectly well that they could be carried out only by following the precedents established in the parent state.
It was not long before the rupture came between men holding views so diametrically opposed to each other with respect to the conduct of government. The governor-general decided not to distribute the patronage of the crown under the advice of his responsible ministry, as was, of necessity, the constitutional practice in England, but to ignore the latter, as he boldly declared, whenever he deemed it expedient. "I wish," he wrote to the colonial secretary, "to make the patronage of the government conducive to the conciliation of all parties by bringing into the public service men of the greatest merit and efficiency without any party distinction." These were noble sentiments, sound in theory, but entirely incompatible with the operation of responsible government. If patronage is to be properly exercised in the interests of the people at large, it must be done by men who are directly responsible to the representatives of the people. If a governor-general is to make appointments without reference to his advisers, he must be more or less subject to party criticism, without having the advantage of defending himself in the legislature, or of having men duly authorized by constitutional usage to do so. The revival of that personal government which had evoked so much political rancour, and brought governors into the arena of party strife before the rebellion, was the natural result of the obstinate and unconstitutional attitude assumed by Lord Metcalfe with respect to appointments to office and other matters of administration.
All the members of the LaFontaine-Baldwin government, with the exception of Mr. Dominick Daly, resigned in consequence of the governor's action. Mr. Daly had no special party proclivities, and found it to his personal interests to remain his Excellency's sole adviser. Practically the province was without an administration for many months, and when, at last, the governor-general was forced by public opinion to show a measure of respect for constitutional methods of government, he succeeded after most strenuous efforts in forming a Conservative cabinet, in which Mr. Draper was the only man of conspicuous ability. The French Canadians were represented by Mr. Viger and Mr. Denis B. Papineau, a brother of the famous rebel, neither of whom had any real influence or strength in Lower Canada, where the people recognized LaFontaine as their true leader and ablest public man. In the general election which soon followed the reconstruction of the government, it was sustained by a small majority, won only by the most unblushing bribery, by bitter appeals to national passion, and by the personal influence of the governor-general, as was the election which immediately preceded the rising in Upper Canada. In later years, Lord Grey[4] remarked that this success was "dearly purchased, by the circumstance that the parliamentary opposition was no longer directed against the advisers of the governor but against the governor himself, and the British government, of which he was the organ." The majority of the government was obtained from Upper Canada, where a large body of people were misled by appeals made to their loyalty and attachment to the crown, and where a large number of Methodists were influenced by the extraordinary action of the Rev. Egerton Ryerson, a son of a United Empire Loyalist, who defended the position of the governor-general, and showed how imperfectly he understood the principles and practice of responsible government. In a life of Sir Charles Metcalfe,[5] which appeared shortly after his death, it is stated that the governor-general "could not disguise from himself that the government was not strong, that it was continually on the brink of defeat, and that it was only enabled to hold its position by resorting to shifts and expedients, or what are called tactics, which in his inmost soul Lord Metcalfe abhorred."
The action of the British ministry during this crisis in Canadian affairs proved quite conclusively that it was not yet prepared to concede responsible government in its fullest sense. Both Lord Stanley, then secretary of state for the colonies, and Lord John Russell, who had held the same office in a Whig administration, endorsed the action of the governor-general, who was raised to the peerage under the title of Baron Metcalfe of Fernhill, in the county of Berks. Earthly honours were now of little avail to the new peer. He had been a martyr for years to a cancer in the face, and when it assumed a most dangerous form he went back to England and died soon after his return. So strong was the feeling against him among a large body of the people, especially in French Canada, that he was bitterly assailed until the hour when he left, a dying man. Personally he was generous and charitable to a fault, but he should never have been sent to a colony at a crisis when the call was for a man versed in the practice of parliamentary government, and able to sympathize with the aspirations of a people determined to enjoy political freedom in accordance with the principles of the parliamentary institutions of England. With a remarkable ignorance of the political conditions of the province—too often shown by British statesmen in those days—so great a historian and parliamentarian as Lord Macaulay actually wrote on a tablet to Lord Metcalfe's memory:—"In Canada, not yet recovered from the calamities of civil war, he reconciled contending factions to each other and to the mother country." The truth is, as written by Sir Francis Hincks[6] fifty years later, "he embittered the party feeling that had been considerably assuaged by Sir Charles Bagot."
Lord Metcalfe was succeeded by Lord Cathcart, a military man, who was chosen because of the threatening aspect of the relations between England and the United States on the question of the Oregon boundary. During his short term of office he did not directly interfere in politics, but carefully studied the defence of the country and quietly made preparations for a rupture with the neighbouring republic. The result of his judicious action was the disappearance of much of the political bitterness which had existed during Lord Metcalfe's administration. The country, indeed, had to face issues of vital importance to its material progress. Industry and commerce were seriously affected by the adoption of free trade in England, and the consequent removal of duties which had given a preference in the British markets to Canadian wheat, flour, and other commodities. The effect upon the trade of the province would not have been so serious had England at this time repealed the old navigation laws which closed the St. Lawrence to foreign shipping and prevented the extension of commerce to other markets. Such a course might have immediately compensated Canadians for the loss of those of the motherland. The anxiety that was generally felt by Canadians on the reversal of the British commercial policy under which they had been able to build up a very profitable trade, was shown in the language of a very largely signed address from the assembly to the Queen. "We cannot but fear," it was stated in this document, "that the abandonment of the protective principle, the very basis of the colonial commercial system, is not only calculated to retard the agricultural improvement of the country and check its hitherto rising prosperity, but seriously to impair our ability to purchase the manufactured goods of Great Britain—a result alike prejudicial to this country and the parent state." But this appeal to the selfishness of British manufacturers had no influence on British statesmen so far as their fiscal policy was concerned. But while they were not prepared to depart in any measure from the principles of free trade and give the colonies a preference in British markets over foreign countries, they became conscious that the time had come for removing, as far as possible, all causes of public discontent in the provinces, at this critical period of commercial depression. British statesmen had suddenly awakened to the mistakes of Lord Metcalfe's administration of Canadian affairs, and decided to pursue a policy towards Canada which would restore confidence in the good faith and justice of the imperial government. "The Queen's representative"—this is a citation from a London paper[7] supporting the Whig government—"should not assume that he degrades the crown by following in a colony with a constitutional government the example of the crown at home. Responsible government has been conceded to Canada, and should be attended in its workings with all the consequences of responsible government in the mother country. What the Queen cannot do in England the governor-general should not be permitted to do in Canada. In making imperial appointments she is bound to consult her cabinet; in making provincial appointments the governor-general should be bound to do the same."
The Oregon dispute had been settled, like the question of the Maine boundary, without any regard to British interests in America, and it was now deemed expedient to replace Lord Cathcart by a civil governor, who would be able to carry out, in the valley of the St. Lawrence, the new policy of the colonial office, and strengthen the ties between the province and the parent state.
As I have previously stated, Lord John Russell's ministry made a wise choice in the person of Lord Elgin. In the following pages I shall endeavour to show how fully were realized the high expectations of those British statesmen who sent him across the Atlantic at this critical epoch in the political and industrial conditions of the Canadian dependency.