Lord Elgin

by John George Bourinot

The new government was constituted as follows:

Lower Canada.—Hon. L.H. LaFontaine, attorney-general of Lower Canada; Hon. James Leslie, president of the executive council; Hon. R.E. Caron, president of the legislative council; Hon. E.P. Taehé, chief commissioner of public works; Hon. I.C. Aylwin, solicitor-general for Lower Canada; Hon. L.M. Viger, receiver-general.

Upper Canada.—Hon. Robert Baldwin, attorney-general of Upper Canada; Hon. R.B. Sullivan, provincial secretary; Hon. F. Hincks, inspector-general; Hon. J.H. Price, commissioner of crown lands; Hon. Malcolm Cameron, assistant commissioner of public works; Hon. W.H. Blake, solicitor-general.

The LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry must always occupy a distinguished place in the political history of the Canadian people. It was the first to be formed strictly in accordance with the principles of responsible government, and from its entrance into public life must be dated a new era in which the relations between the governor and his advisers were at last placed on a sound constitutional basis, in which the constant appeals to the imperial government on matters of purely provincial significance came to an end, in which local self-government was established in the fullest sense compatible with the continuance of the connection with the empire. It was a ministry notable not only for the ability of its members, but for the many great measures which it was able to pass during its term of office—measures calculated to promote the material advancement of the province, and above all to dispel racial prejudices and allay sectional antagonisms by the adoption of wise methods of compromise, conciliation and justice to all classes and creeds.

In Lord Elgin's letters of 1848 to Earl Grey, we can clearly see how many difficulties surrounded the discharge of his administrative functions at this time, and how fortunate it was for Canada, as well as for Great Britain, that he should have been able to form a government which possessed so fully the confidence of both sections of the province, irrespective of nationality. The revolution of February in Paris, and the efforts of a large body of Irish in the United States to evoke sympathy in Canada on behalf of republicanism were matters of deep anxiety to the governor-general and other friends of the imperial state. "It is just as well," he wrote at this time to Lord Grey, "that I should have arranged my ministry, and committed the flag of Great Britain to the custody of those who are supported by the large majority of the representatives and constituencies of the province, before the arrival of the astounding news from Europe which reached us by the last mail. There are not wanting here persons who might, under different circumstances, have attempted by seditious harangues, if not by overt acts, to turn the example of France, and the sympathies of the United States to account."

Under the circumstances he pressed upon the imperial authorities the wisdom of repealing that clause of the Union Act which restricted the use of the French language. "I am for one deeply convinced," and here he showed he differed from Lord Durham, "of the impolicy of all such attempts to denationalize the French. Generally speaking, they produce the opposite effect from that intended, causing the flame of national prejudice and animosity to burn more fiercely." But he went on to say, even were such attempts successful, what would be the inevitable result:

"You may perhaps Americanize, but, depend upon it, by methods of this description you will never Anglicize the French inhabitants of the province. Let them feel, on the other hand, that their religion, their habits, their prepossessions, their prejudices, if you will, are more considered and respected here than in other portions of this vast continent, who will venture to say that the last hand which waves the British flag on American ground may not be that of a French Canadian?"[8]

Lord Elgin had a strong antipathy to Papineau—"Guy Fawkes Papineau," as he called him in one of his letters—who was, he considered, "actuated by the most malignant passions, irritated vanity, disappointed ambition and national hatred," always ready to wave "a lighted torch among combustibles." Holding such opinions, he seized every practical opportunity of thwarting Papineau's persistent efforts to create a dangerous agitation among his impulsive countrymen. He shared fully the great desire of the bishops and clergy to stem the immigration of large numbers of French Canadians into the United States by the establishment of an association for colonization purposes. Papineau endeavoured to attribute this exodus to the effects of the policy of the imperial government, and to gain control of this association with the object of using it as a means of stimulating a feeling against England, and strengthening himself in French Canada by such insidious methods. Lord Elgin, with that intuitive sagacity which he applied to practical politics, recognized the importance of identifying himself with the movement initiated by the bishops and their friends, of putting himself "in so far as he could at its head," of imparting to it "as salutary a direction as possible, and thus wresting from Papineau's hands a potent instrument of agitation." This policy of conciliating the French population, and anticipating the great agitator in his design, was quite successful. To use Lord Elgin's own language, "Papineau retired to solitude and reflection at his seigniory, 'La Petite Nation,'" and the governor-general was able at the same time to call the attention of the colonial secretary to a presentment of the grand jury of Montreal, "in which that body adverts to the singularly tranquil, contented state of the province."

It was at this time that Lord Elgin commenced to give utterance to the views that he had formed with respect to the best method of giving a stimulus to the commercial and industrial interests that were so seriously crippled by the free trade policy of the British government. So serious had been its effects upon the economic conditions of the province that mill-owners, forwarders and merchants had been ruined "at one fell swoop," that the revenue had been reduced by the loss of the canal dues paid previously by the shipping engaged in the trade promoted by the old colonial policy of England, that private property had become unsaleable, that not a shilling could be raised on the credit of the province, that public officers of all grades, including the governor-general, had to be paid in debentures which were not exchangeable at par. Under such circumstances it was not strange, said the governor-general, that Canadians were too ready to make unfavourable comparisons between themselves and their republican neighbours. "What makes it more serious," he said, "is that all the prosperity of which Canada is thus robbed is transplanted to the other side of the line, as if to make Canadians feel more bitterly how much kinder England is to the children who desert her, than to those who remain faithful. It is the inconsistency of imperial legislation, and not the adoption of one policy rather than another, which is the bane of the colonies."

He believed that "the conviction that they would be better off if they were annexed," was almost universal among the commercial classes at that time, and the peaceful condition of the province under all the circumstances was often a matter of great astonishment even to himself. In his letters urging the imperial government to find an immediate remedy for this unfortunate condition of things, he acknowledged that there was "something captivating in the project of forming this vast British Empire into one huge Zollverein, with free interchange of commodities, and uniform duties against the world without; though perhaps without some federal legislation it might have been impossible to carry it out."[9] Undoubtedly, under such a system "the component parts of the empire would have been united by bonds which cannot be supplied under that on which we are now entering," but he felt that, whatever were his own views on the subject, it was then impossible to disturb the policy fixed by the imperial government, and that the only course open to them, if they hoped "to keep the colonies," was to repeal the navigation laws, and to allow them "to turn to the best possible account their contiguity to the States, that they might not have cause for dissatisfaction when they contrasted their own condition with that of their neighbours."