It is impossible to deny the force of these objections. In 1841 Lower Canada had been compelled to join a union in which the voting power of Upper Canada was arbitrarily increased. If this was due to distrust, to fear of "French domination," French-Canadians could not be blamed for showing an equal distrust of English domination, and for refusing to give up the barrier which, as they believed, protected their peculiar institutions. Ultimately the solution was found in the application of the federal system, giving unity in matters requiring common action, and freedom to differ in matters of local concern. Towards this solution events were tending, and the importance of Brown's agitation for representation by population, which gained immense force in Upper Canada, lies in its relation to the larger plan of confederation.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Hincks's Political History of Canada, p. 80.
CHAPTER IX
SOME PERSONAL POLITICS
After the burning of the parliament buildings in Montreal the seat of government oscillated between Quebec and Toronto. Toronto's turn came in the session of 1856. Macdonald was now the virtual, and was on the point of becoming the titular, leader of the party. Brown was equally conspicuous on the other side. During the debate on the address he was the central figure in a fierce struggle, and some one with a turn for statistics said that his name was mentioned three hundred and seventy-two times. The air was stimulating, and Brown's contribution to the debate was not of a character to turn away wrath.
Smarting under Brown's attack, Macdonald suddenly gave a new turn to the debate. He charged that Brown, while acting as a member and secretary of a commission appointed by the Lafontaine-Baldwin government to inquire into the condition of the provincial penitentiary, had falsified testimony, suborned convicts to commit perjury, and obtained the pardon of murderers to induce them to give false evidence. Though the assembly had by this time become accustomed to hard hitting, this outbreak created a sensation. Brown gave an indignant denial to the charges, and announced that he would move for a committee of inquiry. He was angrily interrupted by the solicitor-general, who flung the lie across the House. The solicitor-general was a son of the warden of the penitentiary who had been dismissed in consequence of the report of the commission. Macdonald was a strong personal friend of the warden, and had attempted some years before to bring his case before the assembly. Brown promptly moved for the committee, and it was not long before he presented that tribunal with a dramatic surprise. It was supposed that the report of the penitentiary committee had been burned, and the attack on Brown was made upon that supposition. When Mr. Brown was called as a witness, however, he produced the original report with all the evidence, and declared that it had never been out of his possession "for one hour." The effect of this disclosure on his assailants is shown in a letter addressed to the committee by VanKoughnet, Macdonald's counsel: "Mr. Macdonald," he said, "had been getting up his case on the assumption and belief that these minutes had been destroyed and could not be procured, and much of the labour he had been allowed to go to by Mr. Brown for that purpose would now be thrown away; the whole manner of giving evidence, etc., would now be altered."