British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government, 1839-1854 Part 10

[7] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 26 April, 1847.

[8] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, enclosing a note from Col. Tache, 27 February, 1847.

[9] _Ibid._: Elgin to Grey, 28 June, 1847.

[10] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Grey to Elgin, 7 May, 1847.

[11] _Ibid._: Elgin to Grey, 27 March, 1847.

[12] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 13 July, 1847.

[13] _La Revue Canadienne_, 21 December, 1847.

[14] The speech of the governor-general in proroguing Parliament, 1848.

[15] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Grey to Elgin, 22 February, 1848.

[16] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 17 March, 1848.

[17] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 5 February, 1848.

[18] Elgin refers (11 June, 1849) to "military men, most of whom, I regret to say, consider my ministers and myself little better than rebels."

[19] _Episodes in a Life of Adventure_, p. 57.

[20] The obvious point, made by the Tories in Canada, and by Gladstone in England, was that the new scheme of compensation was certain to recompense many who had actually been in arms in the Rebellion, although their guilt might not be provable in a court of law. See Gladstone in _Hansard_, 14 June, 1849.

[21] Elgin to Grey, concerning Grey's _Colonial Policy_, 8 October, 1852. Metcalfe's policy in the matter had really forced Elgin's hand.

[22] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 14 March, 1849.

[23] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 12 April, 1849.

[24] Elgin's letter of 8 October, 1852, criticizing Grey's book. The italics are my own.

[25] Elgin kept very closely in touch with the sentiments of the Canadian press, French and English. See his letters _pa.s.sim_.

[26] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 4 May, 1848.

[27] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 7 January, 1848.

[28] _Ibid._: Elgin to Grey, 4 May, 1848.

[29] See an interesting reference in a letter to Sir Charles Wood, written from India. Walrond, _op. cit._ pp. 419-20.

[30] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 16 November, 1848.

[31] Walrond, p. 105.

[32] Mrs. Oliphant, _Life of Laurence Oliphant_, i. p. 120.

[33] L. Oliphant, _Episodes in a Life of Adventure_, p. 56.

[34] For Grey's mature position, see below, in Chapter VII.

[35] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Grey to Elgin, 27 July, 1848.

[36] _Ibid._: Grey to Elgin, 20 July, 1849.

[37] The letter, which may be found in Walrond's _Life of Lord Elgin_, pp. 115-20, ought to be read from its first word to its last.

[38] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 7 October, 1849.

[39] Kaye, _Papers and Correspondence of Lord Metcalfe_, p. 414.

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CHAPTER VII.

BRITISH OPINION AND CANADIAN AUTONOMY.

While these great modifications were being made in the form and spirit of Canadian provincial government, corresponding changes were taking place in British opinion. In the present chapter, it is proposed to examine these as they operated during the first two decades of the Victorian era. But an examination of early Victorian imperialism demands, as a first condition, the dismissal of such prejudices and misjudgments as are implicit in recent terms like "Little-Englander"

and "Imperialist." It is, indeed, one of the objects of this chapter to show how little modern party cries correspond to the ideas prevalent from 1840 to 1860, and to exhibit as the central movement in imperial matters the gradual development of a doctrine for the colonies, and more especially for Canada, not dissimilar to that which dominated the economic theory of the day under the t.i.tle of _laissez faire_.

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It is important to limit the scope of the inquiry, for the problem of Canadian autonomy was strictly practical and very pressing. There is little need to exhibit the otiose or irresponsible opinions of men or groups of men, which had no direct influence on events. Little, for example, need be said of the views of the British populace. No doubt Joseph Hume expressed views in which he had many sympathizers throughout the country; but his const.i.tuents were too ill-informed on Canadian politics to make their opinions worthy of study; and their heated debates, carried on in mutual improvement societies, had even less influence in controlling the actions of government than had the speeches of their leader in Parliament.[1] After the sensational beginning of the reign in Canada, public opinion directed its attention to Canadian affairs only when fresh sensations offered themselves, and usually exhibited an indifference which was not without its advantages to the authorities. "People here are beginning to forget Canada, which is the best thing they can do," wrote Grey {232} to Elgin after the Rebellion Losses troubles had fallen quiet.

The British press, too, need claim little attention. On the confession of those mainly concerned, it was wonderfully ignorant and misleading on Canadian subjects. Elgin, who was not indifferent to newspaper criticism, complained bitterly of the unfairness and haphazard methods of the British papers, neglecting, as they did, the real issues, and emphasizing irritating but unimportant troubles. "The English press,"

he wrote, after an important viceregal visit to Boston in 1851, "wholly ignores our proceedings both at Boston and Montreal, and yet one would think it was worth while to get the Queen of England as much cheered in New England as she can be in any part of Old England."[2] Grey in turn had to complain, not merely of indifference, but of misrepresentation, and that too in a crisis in Canadian politics, the Rebellion Losses agitation; "I am misrepresented in _The Times_ in a manner which I fear may do much mischief in Canada. I am reported as having said that the connexion between Canada and this country was drawing rapidly to a close. This is {233} the very opposite of what I really said."[3] How irresponsible and inconsistent a great newspaper could be may be gathered from the treatment by _The Times_ of the Annexationist movement in 1849. Professing at first a calm resignation, it refused for the country "the sterile honour of maintaining a reluctant colony in galling subjection"; yet, shortly afterwards, it took the high imperial line of argument and predicted that "the destined future of Canada, and the disposition of her people" would prevent so unfortunate an ending to the connection.[4] The fact is that in all political questions demanding expert knowledge, newspaper opinion is practically worthless; except in cases where the services of some specialist are called in, and there the expert exercises influence, not through his articles, but because, elsewhere, he has made good his claims to be heard. Canadian problems owed nothing of their solution to the British press.

Another factor, irresponsible and indirect, yet closer to the scene of political action than the press, was a.s.sumed in those years to have a great {234} influence on events--the permanent element in the Colonial Office, and more especially the permanent under-secretary, James Stephen. Charles Buller's pamphlet on _Responsible Government for the Colonies_ formulates the charge against the permanent men in a famous satiric pa.s.sage. Buller had been speaking of the incessant change of ministers in the Colonial Office--ten secretaries of state in little more than so many years. "Perplexed with the vast variety of subjects presented to him--alike appalled by the important and unimportant matters forced on his attention--every Secretary of State is obliged at the outset to rely on the aid of some better informed member of his office. His Parliamentary Under-Secretary is generally as new to the business as himself: and even if they had not been brought in together, the tenure of office by the Under-Secretary having on the average been quite as short as that of the Secretary of State, he has never during the period of his official career obtained sufficient information to make him independent of the aid on which he must have been thrown at the outset. Thus we find both these marked and responsible functionaries dependent on the advice and guidance of another; and that other person must of course be one of the permanent {235} members of the office.... That mother-country which has been narrowed from the British Isles into the Parliament, from the Parliament into the executive government, from the executive government into the Colonial Office, is not to be sought in the apartments of the Secretary of State, or his Parliamentary Under-Secretary. Where you are to look for it, it is impossible to say. In some back-room--whether in the attic, or in what storey we know not--you will find all the mother-country which really exercises supremacy, and really maintains connexion with the vast and widely-scattered colonies of Britain."[5]

The directness and strength of the influence which men like Sir Henry Taylor and Sir James Stephen exercised, both on opinion and events, may be inferred from Taylor's confessions with regard to the slave question in the West Indies, and the extent to which even Peel himself had to depend for information, and occasionally for direction, on the permanent men.[6] It seems clear, too, that up till the year when Lord John Russell took over the Colonial Office, Stephen had a great {236} say in Canadian affairs, especially under Glenelg's regime. "As to his views upon other Colonial questions," says Taylor, "they were perhaps more liberal than those of most of his chiefs; and at one important conjuncture he miscalculated the effect of a liberal confidence placed in a Canadian a.s.sembly, and threw more power into their hands than he intended them to possess."[7] On the a.s.sumption that he was responsible for Glenelg's benevolent view of Canadian local rights, one might attribute something of Lord John Russell's over logical and casuistical declarations concerning responsible government to Buller's "Mr. Mother-country." But it is absurd to suppose that Russell's independent mind operated long under any sub-secretarial influence; more especially since the rapid succession of startling events in Canada made his daring and unconventional statesmanship a fitter means of government than the plodding methods of the bureaucrat. After 1841, Stanley and Stephen were too little sympathetic towards each other's methods and ideas, and Gladstone too strongly fortified in his own opinions, for Stephen's influence to creep in; while the Whig government which entered as he left the Colonial Office, had, {237} in Grey, a Secretary of State too learned in the affairs of his department to reflect the last influences of his retiring under-secretary.

Whatever, then, Mr. Over-Secretary Stephen did to dominate Lord Glenelg, and to initiate the concession of responsible government to Canada, his influence must speedily have sunk to a very secondary position, and the independent and conscious intentions of the responsible ministers held complete sway. It is interesting to note that, according to his son, he seems to have come to share "the opinions prevalent among the liberal party that the colonies would soon be detached from the mother-country."[8]

The actual starting-point of the development of British opinion with regard to Canadian inst.i.tutions is perfectly definite. It dates from the co-operation and mutual influence of a little group of experts in colonial matters, of whom Charles Buller and Gibbon Wakefield were the moving spirits, and the Earl of Durham the ill.u.s.trious mouthpiece. The end of the Rebellion furnished the occasion for their propaganda.

The situation was one peculiarly susceptible to {238} the treatment likely to be proposed by these radical and unconventional spirits. It was difficult to describe the const.i.tutional position of Canada without establishing a contradiction in terms, and neither abstract and logical minds like that of Cornewall Lewis, nor bureaucratic intelligences like Stephen's, could do more than intensify the difficulty and emphasize it. The _deus ex machina_ must appear and solve the preliminary or theoretic difficulties by overriding them. There are some who describe the pioneers of Canadian self-government as philosophic radicals; but they were really not of that school. It was through the absence of any philosophy or rigid logic that they succeeded.

Foremost in the group came Edward Gibbon Wakefield, one of those erratic but creative spirits whose errors are often as profitable to all (save themselves) as their sober acts. It is not here necessary to enter on the details of his emigration system; in that he was, after all, a pioneer in the south and east rather than in the west. But in the stirring years of colonial development, in which Canada, Australia, and New Zealand took their modern form, Wakefield was a leader in const.i.tutional as well as in economic matters, and Canada was favoured not only with his opinions, but with {239} his presence. In the _Art of Colonization_ he entered into some detail on these matters. There was a certain breezy informality about his views, which carried him directly to the heart of the matter. He understood, as few of his contemporaries did, that in all discussions concerning the "connexion,"

the final argument was sentimental rather than const.i.tutional; and he accepted without further argument the incapacity of Englishmen for being other than English in the politics of their colony. "There would still be hostile parties in a colony," he wrote as he planned reforms, "yes, parties instead of factions: for every colony would have its 'ins' and 'outs,' and would be governed as we are--as every free community must be in the present state of the human mind--by the emulation and rivalries, the bidding against each other for public favour, of the party in power and the party in opposition. Government by party, with all its pa.s.sions and corruptions, is the price that a free country pays for freedom. But the colonies would be free communities: their internal differences, their very blunders, and their methods of correcting them, would be all their own; and the colonists who possessed capacity for public business would govern in turns far better on the whole than {240} it would be possible for any other set of beings on earth to govern that particular community."[9] He was, then, for a most entire and whole-hearted control by colonists, and especially Canadians, of their own affairs. But when he came to define what these affairs included, he had limits to suggest, and although he was aware of the dangers implicit in such a limitation, he was very emphatic on the need of imperial control in diplomacy and war, and more especially in the administration of land.[10] How practical and sincere were his views on the supremacy of the home government, he proved by supporting, in person and with his pen, Sir Charles Metcalfe in his struggle to limit the claims of local autonomy.

Powerful and suggestive as Wakefield's mind was, he had, nevertheless, to own a master in colonial theory; for the most distinguished, and by far the clearest, view of the whole matter is contained in Charles Buller's _Responsible Government for the Colonies_, which he published anonymously in 1840. Buller was indeed the ablest of the whole group, and his early death was one of the greatest losses which English politics sustained in the nineteenth {241} century--"an intelligent, clear, honest, most kindly vivacious creature; the genialist Radical I have ever met,"[11] said Carlyle. The ease of his writing and his gift for light satire must not be permitted to obscure the consistency and penetration of his views. Even if Durham contributed more to his Report than seems probable, the view there propounded of the scope of Responsible Government is not nearly so cogent as that of the later pamphlet. Buller, like the other members of his group, believed in the acknowledgment of a supremacy, vested in the mother country, and expressed in control of foreign affairs, inter-colonial affairs, land, trade, immigration, and the like; but outside the few occasions on which these matters called for imperial interference, he was for absolute non-interference, and protested that "that constant reference to the authorities in England, which some persons call responsibility to the mother country, is by no means necessary to insure the maintenance of a beneficial colonial connexion."[12] His originality indeed is best tested by the vigour and truth of his criticisms of the existing administration. First of all representation had been given without {242} executive responsibility. Then for practical purposes the colonists were allowed to make many of their own laws, without the liberty to choose those who would administer them. Then a colonial party, self-styled the party of the connexion, or the loyal party, monopolized office. To Buller the idea of combining a popular representation with an unpopular executive seemed the height of const.i.tutional folly; and, like Wakefield, he understood, as perhaps not five others in England did, the place of party government and popular dictation in colonial const.i.tutional development. "The whole direction of affairs," he said, "and the whole patronage of the Executive practically are at present in the hands of a colonial party.

Now when _this is the case, it can be of no importance to the mother country in the ordinary course of things, which of these local parties possesses the powers and emoluments of office_."[13] Unlike the majority of his contemporaries, he believed in a.s.suming the colonists to be inspired with love for their mother country, common sense, and a regard for their own welfare; and it seemed obvious that men so disposed were infinitely better qualified than the Colonial Office to manage their own affairs. Nothing but evil {243} could result "from the attempt to conduct the internal affairs of the colonies in accordance with the public opinion, not of those colonies themselves, but of the mother country."[14] It may seem a work of supererogation to complete the sketch of this group with an examination of the opinions expressed in Lord Durham's Report; yet that Report is so fundamental a doc.u.ment in the development of British imperial opinion that time must be found to dispel one or two popular illusions.[15] It is a mistake to hold that Durham advocated the fullest concession of local autonomy to Canada. Sir Francis Hincks, a protagonist of Responsible Government, once quoted from the Report sentences which seemed to justify all his claims: "The crown must submit to the necessary consequences of representative inst.i.tutions, and if it has to carry on the government in union with a representative body, it must consent to carry it on by means of those in whom that representative body has confidence"; and again, "I admit that the system which I propose would in fact place the internal government of the colony in the hands of the {244} colonists themselves, and that we should thus leave to them the execution of the laws of which we have long entrusted the making solely to them."[16] Public opinion in Canada also put this extreme interpretation on the language of the Report.