British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government, 1839-1854 Part 11

Yet, as a first modification, it was Lord Metcalfe's confident opinion that the responsibility of ministers to the a.s.sembly for which Durham pled, was not that of a united Cabinet, but rather of departmental heads in individual isolation,[17] and certainly one sentence in the Report can hardly be interpreted otherwise: "This (the change) would induce responsibility for every act of the Government, and, as a natural consequence, it would necessitate _the subst.i.tution of a system of administration by means of competent heads of departments, for the present rude machinery of an executive council_."[18]

In the second place, while Durham did indeed speak of making the colonial executive responsible to a colonial a.s.sembly, he discriminated between the internal government of the colony and its {245} imperial aspect.[19] In practice he modified his gift of home rule, by placing, like Wakefield and Buller, many things beyond the scope of colonial responsibility, for example, "the const.i.tution of the form of government, the regulation of foreign relations, and of trade with the mother country, the other British colonies, and foreign nations, and the disposal of the public lands."[20] There is too remarkable a consensus of opinion on this point within the group to leave any doubt as to the intention of Durham and his a.s.sistants; that an extensive region should be left subject to strictly imperial supervision.

Durham's career ended before his actions could furnish a practical test of his theories, but Buller, like Wakefield, gave a plain statement of what he meant by supporting Metcalfe against his council, at a time when the colonial a.s.sembly seemed to be infringing on imperial rights.

"No man," said Buller, of the Metcalfe affair, "could seriously think of saying that in the appointment of every subordinate officer in every county in Canada, the opinion of the Executive Council was to be taken."[21]

{246}

To pa.s.s from controversy to certainty, there was one aspect of the Report which made it the most notable deliverance of its authors, and which set that group apart from every other political section in Britain, whether Radical, Whig, or Tory--I mean its robust and unhesitating imperialism. How deeply pessimism concerning the Empire had pervaded all minds at that time, it will be the duty of this chapter to prove, but, in the Report at least, there is no doubt of its authors' desire, "to perpetuate and strengthen the connexion between this Empire and the North American Colonies, which would then form one of the brightest ornaments in your Majesty's Imperial Crown." This confident imperial note, then, was the most striking contribution of the Durham Radicals to colonial development; and the originality and unexpectedness of their confidence gains impressiveness when contrasted with general contemporary opinion.

They contributed, too, in another and less simple fashion, to the const.i.tutional question. Nowhere so clearly as in their writings are both sides of the theoretic contradiction--British supremacy and Canadian autonomy--so boldly stated, and, in spite of the contradiction, so confidently accepted. They would trust implicitly to the sense and {247} feelings, however crude, of the colony: they would surrender the entire control of domestic affairs: they would sanction, as at home, party with all its faults, popular control of the executive, and apparently the decisive influence of that executive in advising the governor in internal affairs. Yet, in the great imperial federation of which they dreamed, they never doubted the right of the mother country to act with overmastering authority in certain crises.

That right, and the unquenchable affection of exiles for the land whence they came, const.i.tuted for them "the connexion."

These were the views which came to dominate political opinion in Britain, for Molesworth was right when he declared that to Buller and Wakefield, more than to any other persons, was the country indebted for sound views on colonial policy. The interest of the present inquiry lies in tracing the development of these views into something unlike, and distinctly bolder than, anything which these rash and unconventional thinkers had planned.

Whatever might be the shortcomings of the Radical group, the daring of their trust in the colonists stands out in high relief against a background of conservative restriction and distrust. It was natural for the Tories to think of colonies as {248} they did. Under the leadership of North and George III. they had experienced what might well seem to them the natural consequences of the old const.i.tutional system of colonial administration. After 1782 they were disinclined to experiment in a.s.semblies as free as those of Ma.s.sachusetts and Connecticut had been. The reaction caused by the French Revolution deepened their distrust of popular inst.i.tutions; and the war of 1812 quickened their hatred of the United States--the zone of political no less than military danger for Canada. The conquests which they made had given them a second colonial empire, and they had administered that empire with financial generosity and const.i.tutional parsimony, hoping against hope that a fabric so unexpected and difficult as colonial empire might after all disappoint their fears by remaining true to Britain. Developing in spite of themselves, and with the times, they had still learned little and forgotten little. So it was that Sir George Arthur, a Tory governor _in partibus infidelium_, was driven into panic by Durham's frank criticisms, and expounded to Normanby, his Whig chief, fears not altogether baseless: "The bait of responsible government has been eagerly taken, and its poison is working most mischievously.... {249} The measure recommended by such high authority is the worst evil that has yet befallen Upper Canada":[22] and again, "since the Earl of Durham's Report was published, the reform party, as I have already stated, have come out in greater force--not in favour of the Union, nor of the other measures contemplated by the Bill, that has been sent out to this country, but for the daring object so strenuously advocated by Mackenzie, familiarly denominated responsible government."[23]

The distrust and timidity of Arthur's despatches are shared in by practically the entire Tory party in its dealings with Canada, after the Rebellion. The Duke of Wellington opposed the Union of the provinces, because, among other consequences, "the union into one Legislature of the discontented spirits heretofore existing in two separate Legislatures will not diminish, but will tend to augment, the difficulties attending the administration of the government; particularly under the circ.u.mstances of the encouragement given to expect the establishment in the united province of a local responsible administration of government."[24] He {250} was greatly excited when the news of Bagot's concessions arrived. Arbuthnot describes his chief's mood as one of anger and indignation. "What a fool the man must have been," he kept exclaiming, "to act as he has done! and what stuff and nonsense he has written! and what a bother he makes about his policy and his measures, when there are no measures but rolling himself and his country in the mire."[25]

During these years, and until late in 1845, Lord Stanley presided at the Colonial Office. Naturally of an arrogant and unyielding temper, and with something of the convert's fanatic devotion to the political creed of his adoption, he administered Canada avowedly on the lines of Lord John Russell's despatch to Poulett Thomson, but with all the emphasis on the limitations prescribed in that despatch, and in a spirit singularly irritating. His conduct towards Bagot exhibited a consistent distrust of Canadian self-government; and the fundamental defects of his advice to Bagot's successor cannot be better exhibited than in the letter warning Metcalfe of "the extreme risk which would attend any disruption of the present Conservative party of Canada.

Their own steadiness {251} and your own firmness and discretion have gone far towards consolidating them as a party and securing a stable administration of the colony."[26] In spite of the warnings of Durham and Buller, Stanley was aiming at restoring all the ancient landmarks--an unpopular executive, a small privileged party "of the connexion," and a colony quickly and surely pa.s.sing from the control of Britain. Even after Stanley's resignation, and the accession of an avowed Peelite and free-trader, Gladstone, to his office, the change in commercial theory did not at first effect any change in the Colonial Office interpretation of the Canadian const.i.tution. No doubt Gladstone recommended Cathcart to ascertain the deliberate sense of the Canadian community at large, and pay respect to the House of a.s.sembly as the organ of that sense, but he committed himself and the new governor-general to a strong support of Metcalfe's system, and put him on his guard against "dishonourable abstract declarations on the subject of what has been termed responsible government."[27]

It would be tedious to follow the subject into every detail of Canadian administration; but all {252} existing evidence tends to prove that the representative men of the British Tory party opposed the new interpretation of Canadian rights at every crisis in the period. In the Rebellion Losses debate in 1849, Gladstone, taking in this matter a view more restricted than that of his leader Peel, held that Elgin should have referred to the Home Government at the very first moment, and before public opinion had been appealed to in the colony.[28] The fall of the Whig ministry in 1851 was followed by the first of three brief Derby administrations: and the Earl of Derby proved himself to be more wedded than he had been as Lord Stanley to the old restrictive system. The Clergy Reserve dispute was nearing its end, but Derby and Sir John Pakington, his colonial secretary, intervened to introduce one last delay, and to give the Bishop of Toronto his last gleam of hope.

The appointment of Pakington, which, according to Taylor, was treated with very general ridicule, was in itself significant: even an ignorant and retrograde politician was adequate for his task when that task was obstruction. After the short-lived Derby administration was over, Pakington continued his defence of Anglican rights in Canada, and although {253} Canadian opinion had declared itself overwhelmingly on the other side, he refused to admit that "the argument of self-government was so paramount that it ought to over-rule the sacred dedication of this property."

So far nothing unexpected has been revealed in the early Victorian colonial policy of the Tories. The party naturally and logically opposed all forms of democratic control; they stood for the strict subordination of the outlying regions to the centre in the administration of dependencies; they were, as they had always and everywhere been, the party of the Church, and of church endowment. But it is surprising to find that the party of Wellington and of British supremacy varied their doctrine of central authority with very pessimistic prophecies concerning the connection between mother country and colonies.

Stanley has already been exhibited, during the Bagot and Metcalfe incidents, as a prophet of pessimism; and at the same period, Peel seems to have shared in the views of his Colonial Secretary. "Let us keep Nova Scotia and New Brunswick," he said, "but the connection with the Canadas _against their wills_, nay without the cordial co-operation of the predominant party in Canada, is {254} a very onerous one. The sooner we have a distinct understanding on that head the better. The advantage of commercial intercourse is all on the side of the colony, or at least is not in favour of the mother country. Why should we go on fighting not our own battle (I speak now of a civil battle) but theirs--in a minority in the Legislature, the progress of the contest widening daily old differences and begetting new ones! But above all, if the people are not cordially with us, why should we contract the tremendous obligation of having to defend, on a _point of honour_, their territory against American aggression?"[29]

Ten years later, Tory pessimists still talked of separation. Lord John Manners, in an oration which showed as much rhetorical effort as it did little sense and information, was prepared for disaster over no more tragic an issue than the Clergy Reserves. Concession to local demands on that point for him involved something not far from disruption of the Empire. "Far better than this, if you really believe it to be necessary to acknowledge the virtual independence of Canada, recall your Governor-General, call back your army, call home your fleet, and let Canada, if she be so {255} minded, establish her independence and cast off her character as a colony, or seek refuge in the extended arms of the United States."[30] But perhaps it is not fair to confront a man with his perorations.

The most remarkable confession of Tory doubt still remains to be told.

It is not usually noticed that Disraeli's famous phrase "these wretched colonies will all be independent too in a few years, and are a mill-stone round our necks,"[31] was used in connection with Canadian fishery troubles, and belongs to this same region of imperial pessimism. There is, however, another less notorious but perfectly explicit piece of evidence betraying the fears which at this time disturbed the equanimity of the founder of modern imperialism. He had been speaking of the attempts of liberalism to effect the disintegration of the Empire; but the speech, which contained his counter-scheme of imperial consolidation, was itself an evidence of doubt deeper than that harboured by his opponents. "When those subtle views were adopted by the country, under the plausible plea of granting {256} self-government to the Colonies, _I confess that I myself thought that the tie was broken_. Not that I for one object to self-government. I cannot conceive how our distant colonies can have their affairs administered except by self-government. But self-government, in my opinion, when it is conceded, ought to have been conceded as part of a great policy of Imperial consolidation."[32]

Disraeli was speaking of the views on colonial government, which he had held, apparently at the time when Grey and Elgin introduced their new system. That system had since been developed under Gladstone's supervision; and, in 1872, the date of Disraeli's speech, it presented not fewer, but more decided signs of colonial independence. Yet the statesman who accused the Whigs and Liberals of planning the disruption of the Empire, never attempted, when in office, to stay the decline of imperial unity by any practical scheme of federation, and must be counted either singularly indifferent to the interests of the empire, or sceptical as to its future. A few years later, when the Imperial t.i.tles Bill was under discussion, Disraeli again revealed a curious disbelief in, or misunderstanding of, the character of the self-governing colonies. He had been {257} challenged to defend his differentiation of the royal t.i.tle in India from that authorized in the rest of the British Empire. It would have been easy to confess that an imperial dignity, appropriate to the East, would have been singularly out of place in communities more democratic than Britain herself. But he chose to argue from the unsubstantiality of separate colonial existence, and the natural inclination of prosperous colonists to make for England, the moment their fortunes had been made. "The condition of colonial society," he said, "is of a fluctuating character....

There is no similarity between the circ.u.mstances of our colonial fellow-subjects and those of our fellow-subjects in India. Our colonists are English; they come and go, they are careful to make fortunes, to invest their money in England; their interests are immense, ramified, complicated, and they have constant opportunities of improving and enjoying the relations which exist between themselves and their countrymen in the metropolis. Their relations to their Sovereign are ample, they satisfy them. The colonists are proud of those relations, they are interested in the t.i.tles of the Queen, they look forward to return when they {258} leave England, they do return--in short they are Englishmen."[33]

It seems fair to argue from these instances that Disraeli, with all his imagination and insight, did not, even in 1876, understand the const.i.tutional and social self-sufficiency of the greater colonies; or the nature of the bond which held them fast to the mother country. His consummate rhetorical skill persuaded the nation to be imperial, while he himself doubted the very possibility of permanence in an empire organized on the only lines--those of strict autonomy--which the colonists were willing to sanction.

So the party of the earlier British Empire distrusted the foundations laid by Durham and his group for a new structure; and behind all their proclamations of authority, there were ill-concealed fears of another declaration or succession of declarations of independence.

It is now time to turn to the central body of imperial opinion--that which used Durham's views as the foundation of a new working theory of colonial development. Its chief exponents were the Whigs of the more liberal school, who counted {259} Lord John Russell their representative and leader.

It was only at the end of a period dominated by other interests that Lord John Russell was able to turn his attention to colonies, and more particularly to Canada. Even in 1839, the leader of the House of Commons, and the politician on whom, after all, the fate of the Whig party depended, had many other claims on his attention. He was no theorist at general on the subject, and his interest in Canada was largely the product of events, not of his own will. But he came at a decisive moment in Canadian history; his tenure of the Colonial Office coincided with the period in which Durham's Report exercised its greatest influence, and Russell, who had the politician's faculty for flinging himself with all his force into the issue dominating the present, inaugurated what proved to be a new regime in colonial administration.

In attributing so decisive a part to Russell's work at the Colonial Office, one need not estimate very highly his powers of initiative or imagination. It was Lord John Russell's lot, here as in Parliamentary Reform, to read with honest eyes the defects of the existing system, to initiate a great and useful change, and then to predicate finality {260} of an act, which was really only the beginning of greater changes. But in Canadian politics as in British, he must be credited with being better than his words, and with doing nothing to hinder a movement which he only partially understood.

His ideas have in part been criticized in relation to Lord Sydenham's governor-generalship: in a sense, Sydenham was simply the Russell system incarnate. But it is well to examine these ideas as a whole.

Russell was a Durhamite "with a difference." Like Durham he planned a generous measure of self-government, but he was a stricter const.i.tutional thinker than Durham. He reduced to a far finer point the difficulty which Durham only slightly felt, about the seat of ultimate authority and responsibility; and his instructions to Sydenham left no doubt as to the const.i.tutional superior in Canada. With infinitely shrewder practical insight than his prompter, he refused to simplify the problem of executive responsibility, by making the council subject to the a.s.sembly in purely domestic matters, and to the Crown and its representative in external matters. "Supposing," he said, "that you could lay down this broad principle, and say that all external matters {261} should be subject to the home government, and all internal matters should be governed according to the majority of the a.s.sembly, could you carry that principle into effect? I say, we cannot abandon the responsibility which is cast upon us as Ministers of the Executive of this great Empire."[34] Ultimately the surrender had to be made, but it was well that Russell should have refused to consent to what was really a fallacy in Durham's reasoning. In consequence of this position, the Whig leader regarded Bagot's surrender as one, difficult perhaps to avoid, but unfortunate in its results, and he was an unflinching supporter of Metcalfe. He further declared that he thought Metcalfe's council had an exaggerated view of their power, and that to yield to them would involve dangers to the connection.[35] The novelty involved in his policy lay, however, outside this point of const.i.tutional logic: it was a matter of practice, not of theory. Not only did he support Sydenham in those practical reforms in which the new political life of Canada began, but in spite of his theory he really granted all save the form of full responsibility. So completely had he, and his agent Sydenham, undermined their own imperial {262} position, that when Peel's ministry fell in 1846, it was one of the first acts of Lord John Russell, now prime minister, to consent to the demolition of his own old theories. If he may not dispute with Grey the credit of having conceded genuine responsibility to Canada, at least he did not exercise his authority to forbid the grant.

It seems to me, indeed, that Russell definitely modified his position between 1841 and 1847. At the earlier date he had been a stout upholder of the supremacy of Britain in Canada, for he believed in the connection, and the connection depended on the retention of British supremacy. In the debate of January 16th, 1838, he argued thus for the Empire: "On the preservation of our colonies depends the continuance of our commercial marine; and on our commercial marine mainly depends our naval power; and on our naval power mainly depends the strength and supremacy of our arms."[36] It is worthy of note that Charles Buller took occasion to challenge this description of the pillars of empire--it seemed a poor theory to him to make the empire a stalking-horse for the commerce and interests of the mother country.

But as events taught Russell surely that the casuistry of 1839 {263} was false, and that Responsible Government was both a deeper and a broader thing than he had counted it, and yet inevitable, he accepted the more radical position. At the same time, he either came to lay less stress on the unity of Empire, or he was forced to acknowledge that, since Home Rule must be granted, and since with Home Rule separation seemed natural, Britain had better practise resignation in view of a possible disruption. The best known expression of this phase in Russell's thought is his speech on Colonial Administration in 1850: "I antic.i.p.ate, indeed, with others that some of the colonies may so grow in population and wealth that they may say, 'Our strength is sufficient to enable us to be independent of England. The link is now become onerous to us; the time is come when we think we can, in amity and alliance with England, maintain our independence.' I do not think that that time is yet approaching. But let us make them as far as possible fit to govern themselves ... let them increase in wealth and population; and whatever may happen, we of this great empire shall have the consolation of saying that we have contributed to the happiness of the world."[37] It is possible to {264} argue that because Russell admitted that the time for separation was not yet approaching he was therefore an optimist. But the evidence leans rather to the less glorious side. It was this speech which kindled Elgin into a pa.s.sion and made him bid Grey renounce for himself and his leader the habit of telling the colonies that the colonial is a provisional existence. The same speech, too, extorted complaints from Robert Baldwin, the man whom Sydenham and Russell had once counted half a traitor. "I never saw him so much moved," wrote Elgin, to whom Baldwin had frankly said about a recent meeting. "My audience was disposed to regard a prediction of this nature proceeding from a Prime Minister, less as a speculative abstraction than as one of that cla.s.s of prophecies which work their own fulfilment."[38] The speech was not an accidental or occasional flash of rhetoric. The mind of the Whig leader, acquiescing now in the completeness of Canadian local powers, and reading with disquiet the signs of the times in the form of Canadian turbulence, seems to have turned to speculate on the least harmful form which separation might take. Of this there is direct evidence in a private letter from Grey to Elgin: "Lord {265} John in a letter I had from him yesterday, expresses a good deal of anxiety as to the prospects of Canada, and reverts to the old idea of forming a federal union of all the British provinces, in order to give them something more to think of than their mere local squabbles;[39] and he says that if to effect this a separation of the two Canadas were necessary he should see no objection to it. His wish in forming such a union would be to bring about such a state of things, that, _if you should lose our North American provinces, they might be likely to become an independent state, instead of being merged in the Union_."[40]

Russell moved then at this period through a most interesting development of views. His initial position was a blend of firm imperialism and generous liberal concession, the latter more especially inspired by Durham. As his genuine sympathies with liberty and democracy operated on his political views, these steadily changed in the direction of a more complete surrender to Canadian demands. But, since, in spite of his sympathies, he still remained logical, and since he had believed the connection to depend on {266} the governor-general's supremacy, the modification of that supremacy involved the weakening of his hopes of empire. If the change seem somewhat to his discredit, his best defence lies in the fact that Peel, who made a very similar modification of his mind on Canadian politics, was also contemplating in these years a similar separation. "The utility of our connexion with Canada," he said in 1844, "must depend upon its being continued with perfect goodwill by the majority of the population. It would be infinitely better that that connexion should be discontinued, rather than that it should be continued by force and against the general feeling and conviction of the people."[41] Indeed, Russell seems to have been accompanied on his dolorous journey by all the Peelites and not a few of the Whigs. "There begins to prevail in the House of Commons," wrote Grey to Elgin in 1849, "and I am sorry to say in the highest quarters, an opinion (which I believe to be utterly erroneous) that we have no interest in preserving our colonies and ought therefore to make no sacrifice for that purpose. Peel, Graham, and Gladstone, if they do not avow this opinion as openly as Cobden and his friends, yet betray very clearly that they {267} entertain it, nor do I find some members of the Cabinet free from it."[42]

Meanwhile, the direction of colonial affairs had fallen to the writer of the letter just quoted: from the formation of the Russell ministry in 1846 until its fall, Earl Grey was the dominant force in British colonial policy. Unlike Russell, Grey was not so much a politician interested in the great parliamentary game, as an expert who had devoted most of his attention to colonial and economic subjects.

Consciously or unconsciously, he had imbibed many of Wakefield's ideas, and in that period of triumphant free trade, he came to office resolute to administer the colonies on free-trade principles. It said much for the fixity and consistency of his ideas of colonial administration that, unlike Russell, Buller, and others, he had not been misled by the Metcalfe incident. "The truth is," he said of Metcalfe, "he did not comprehend responsible government at all, nor from his Indian experience is this wonderful."[43]

The most comprehensive description of the Grey regime is that it practised _laissez faire_ principles in colonial administration as they never had been {268} practised before. Under him Canada first enjoyed the advantages or disadvantages of free trade, and escaped from the shackles of the Navigation Laws. Grey and Elgin co-operated to bring the Clergy Reserve troubles to an end, although the Whigs fell before the final steps could be taken. Grey secured imperial sanction for changes in the Union Act of 1840, granting the French new privileges for their language, and the colony free control of its own finances.

But all these were subordinate in importance to the att.i.tude of the new minister towards the whole question of Canadian autonomy, and its relation to the Imperial Parliament. That att.i.tude may be examined in relation to the responsibility of the Canadian executive, the powers of the Imperial Parliament, the occasions on which these powers might be fitly used, and the bearing of all the innovations on the position of Canada within the British Empire.

Grey's policy with regard to Responsible Government was simple. As Canadians viewed the term, and within the very modest limits set to it by them, he surrendered the whole position. So much has already been said on this point in connection with Elgin, that it need not be further elaborated. Yet, since there might linger a suspicion that the {269} policy was that rather of the governor than of the minister, Grey's position may be given in a despatch written to Sir John Harvey in Nova Scotia, before Elgin went to Canada.

"The object," wrote Grey, "with which I recommend to you this course is that of making it apparent that any transfer, which may take place, of political power from the hands of one party to those of another is the result, not of an act of yours, but of the wishes of the people themselves, as shown by the difficulty experienced by the retiring party in carrying on the government of the Province according to the forms of the Const.i.tution. To this I attach great importance; I have therefore to instruct you to abstain from changing your Executive Council until it shall become perfectly clear that they are unable with such fair support from yourself as they have a right to expect, to carry on the government of the province satisfactorily, and command the confidence of the Legislature.... In giving all fair and proper support to your Council for the time being, you will carefully avoid any acts which can possibly be supposed to imply the slightest personal objection to their opponents, and also refuse to a.s.sent to any measures which may be {270} proposed to you by your Council, which may appear to you to involve an improper exercise of the authority of the Crown for party rather than for public objects. In exercising however this power of refusing to sanction measures which may be submitted to you by your Council, you must recollect that this power of opposing a check upon extreme measures, proposed by the party for the time in the Government, depends entirely for its efficacy upon its being used sparingly and with the greatest possible discretion. A refusal to accept advice tendered to you by your Council is a legitimate ground for its members to tender to you their resignation--a course they would doubtless adopt, should they feel that the subject on which a difference had arisen between you and themselves was one upon which public opinion would be in their favour. Should it prove to be so, concession to their views must sooner or later become inevitable, since it cannot be too distinctly acknowledged that it is neither possible nor desirable to carry on the government of any of the British Provinces in North America, in opposition to the opinion of the inhabitants."[44]

In strict accordance with this plan, Grey gave {271} Elgin the most loyal support in introducing responsible government into Canada, and, in a note written not long after Papineau had once more awakened the political echoes with a distinctly disloyal address, he expressed his willingness to include even the old rebel in the ministerial arrangement, should that be insisted on by the leaders of a party which could command a majority.[45]

Complete as was the concession made by Grey to local claims, it would, nevertheless, be a grave error to think that he left no s.p.a.ce for the a.s.sertion of imperial authority. No doubt it was part of his system to reduce to a minimum the occasions on which interference should be necessary, but that such occasions might occur, and demand sudden and powerful action from Britain, he ever held. Even in matters of a character purely domestic, he believed, with Lord John Russell, that intervention might be necessary, and he desired to prevent danger, not by minimizing the powers of the imperial authority, but by exercising them with great discretion.[46] It was perhaps with this conservation of central power in view that {272} he was willing to transfer to the British treasury the responsibility of paying the salary of the governor-general, provided the colonists would take over some part of the expenses and difficulties of Canadian defence. But the extent to which he was prepared to exalt the supremacy is best ill.u.s.trated in the control of imperial commerce. A great change had just been made in the economic system of Britain. Free trade was then to its adherents not an arguable position, but a kind of gospel; and men like Grey, who had something of the propagandist about them, were inclined to compel others to come in. Now, unfortunately for Canada, free trade appeared there first rather as foe than as friend. As has already been seen, the measures of 1846 overturned the arrangement made by Stanley in 1843, whereby a preference given to Canadian flour had stimulated a great activity in the milling and allied industries; and the removal of the restrictions imposed by the Navigation Acts did not take place till 1849. At the same time the United States, the natural market for Canadian products, showed little inclination to listen to talk of reciprocity; and the Canadians, seemingly deprived of pre-existing advantages by Peel's action, talked of retaliation as a means of {273} bettering their position, at least in relation to the United States.

Grey, however, was an absolute believer in the magic powers of free trade. "When we rejected all considerations of what is called reciprocity," he wrote to Elgin, "and boldly got rid of our protective duties without inquiring whether other nations would meet us or not, the effect was immediately seen in the increase of our exports, and the prosperity of our manufactures."[47] Canada, then, in his opinion could retaliate most effectively, not by setting up a tariff against the United States, but by opening her ports more freely then before.

He had a vision, comparable although in contrast, to that of believers in an imperial tariff, of an empire with its separate parts bound to each other by a general freedom of trade. Besides all this, he had a firm trust that the evils which other nations less free than Britain might for a time inflict on her trade by their prohibitions, would shortly end, since all would be convinced by the example of Britain and would follow it. Under these circ.u.mstances he set imperial policy against local prejudice, and wrote to his governor-general: "I do trust you will be able to prevent the attempt to enter upon that silliest of all silly policies, the {274} meeting of commercial restrictions by counter restrictions; _indeed it is a matter to be very seriously considered, whether we can avoid disallowing any acts of this kind which may be pa.s.sed_."[48]

In spite, then, of the present thoroughness of Grey's conversion to the Canadian position with regard to Home Rule, there was for him still an empire operating through the Houses at Westminster and the Crown ministers, and striking in, possibly on rare occasions, but, when necessary, with a heavy hand. To such a man, too, belief in the permanence of empire was natural. There are fewer waverings on the point in Grey's writings than in those of any of his contemporaries, Durham, Buller, and Elgin alone excepted. He had, indeed, as his private correspondence shows, moments of gloom. Under the strain of the Montreal riots, and the insults to Elgin in 1849, he wrote: "I confess that looking at these indications of the state of feeling there, and at the equally significant indications to the feelings in the House of Commons, respecting the value of our colonies, I begin almost to despair of our long retaining those in North America; while I am persuaded that to both parties a hasty separation will be a very serious {275} evil."[49] Elgin's robust faith, and perfect knowledge, however, set him right. Indeed, in tracing the growth of Grey's colonial policy, it is impossible for anyone to mistake the evidences of Elgin's influence; and the chapter on Canada in his _Colonial Policy_ owes almost more to Elgin than it does to the avowed author.

His final position may be stated thus. The empire was to the advantage of England, for, apart from other reasons, her place among the nations depended on the colonies, and the act of separation would also be one of degradation. The empire was an unspeakable benefit to the colonies: "To us," he once wrote in a moment of doubt, "except the loss of prestige (no slight one I admit) the loss of Canada would be the loss of little but a source of heavy expense and great anxiety, while to the Canadians, the loss of our protection, and of our moderating influence to restrain the excesses of their own factions, would be one of the greatest that can be conceived."[50] But, apart from these lower loss and gain calculations, to Grey the British Empire was a potent instrument, essential to the peace and soundness of the world, and he expected the {276} provinces to which he had conceded British rights, to rally to uphold British standards through a united and loyal imperial federation. Those were still days when Britain counted herself, and not without justification, a means of grace to the less fortunate remainder of mankind. "The authority of the British Crown is at this moment the most powerful instrument, under Providence, of maintaining peace and order in many extensive regions of the earth, and thereby a.s.sists in diffusing among millions of the human race, the blessings of Christianity and civilization. Supposing it were clear (which I am far from admitting) that a reduction of our national expenditure (otherwise impracticable) to the extent of a few hundred thousands a year, could be effected by withdrawing our authority and protection from our numerous Colonies, would we be justified, for the sake of such a saving, in taking this step, and thus abandoning the duty which seems to have been cast upon us?"[51]

Such, then, was the imperial policy of Britain under the man who carried it farthest forward, before the great renaissance at the end of Queen Victoria's reign. To Grey, Canada was all that it had meant to Durham--a province peopled by {277} subjects of the Queen, and one destined by providence to have a great future--a fundamental part of the Empire, and one without which the imperial whole must be something meaner and less glorious. Like Durham he planned for it a const.i.tution on the most generous lines, and conferred great gifts upon it. And, in exchange, he claimed a loyalty proportionate to the generosity of the Crown, and a propriety of political behaviour worthy of citizens of so great a state. In the last resort he held that in abnormal crises, or in response to great and beneficial policies, Canadians must forget their provincial outlook, or, if they could not, at least accept the ruling of an imperial parliament and a crown more enlightened and authoritative on these matters than a colonial ministry or people could be. Having conceded all the rights essential to a free existence, he mentioned duties, and called the sum of these duties Empire.

The concluding stage in the evolution of mid-Victorian opinion concerning Canada, which must now be described, differs essentially from the earlier stages, although, as it seems to me, the chief factor in the development is still Durham and his group. It is the period of separatism.

One thing has appeared very prominently in the {278} foregoing argument--the prevalence of a fear, or even a fixed belief, that the connection between Britain and Canada must soon cease. Excluding, for the present, the entire group of extreme radicals, there was hardly a statesman of the earlier years of Victoria, who had not confessed that Canada must soon leave England, or be left. Many instances have been already cited. Among the Tories, Stanley thought that Bagot had already begun the process of separation, and that Metcalfe's failure would involve the end of the connection. Peel, ever judicial, gave his verdict in favour of separation, should Canadians persist in resenting imperial action. As Lord John Russell's view of autonomy expanded, his hopes for continued British supremacy contracted; and, on the evidence of a letter from Grey quoted above, Russell was not alone among the Whigs in his opinion, nor Peel among his immediate followers. The reckless and partizan use of the term Little-Englander has largely concealed the fact that apart from Durham, whose faith was not called upon to bear the test of experience, and Buller, Grey, and Elgin, who had special grounds for their confidence, all the responsible politicians of the years between 1840 and 1860 moved steadily towards a "Little England" position. {279} The reasons for that movement are worthy of examination.

So far as the Tories were concerned, the change, already traced in detail, was not unnatural. In the eighteenth century, the colonies, possessed of just that responsible government for which Canadian reformers were clamouring, had with one accord left the Empire. The earlier nineteenth century had witnessed in the British American colonies a steadily increasing demand for the liberties, formerly possessed by the New England states. Representative a.s.semblies had been granted; then a modified form of responsibility of the executive to these a.s.semblies; then the complete surrender of executive to legislature. Attempts had been made to gain some countervailing powers by bargain; but, in Canada, the civil list had now been surrendered to local control, the endowment of the Church of England was practically at an end, patronage was in the hands of the provincial ministry, and all the exceptions which the central authority had claimed as essential to its continued existence followed in the wake of the lost executive supremacy. Neither Whigs nor Tories quite understood how an Empire was possible, in which there was no definite federating principle; or, if there {280} were, where the federating principle existed only to be neutralized as, one by one, the restrictions imposed by it were felt by the colonists to be annoying to their sense of freedom. Empire on these terms seemed to mean simply a capacity in the mother country for indefinite surrender. The accomplishment of the purpose proclaimed by Durham, Russell, and Grey, would, to a Tory even less peremptory than the Duke of Wellington, mean the end of the connection; and as they felt, so they spoke and acted. They were separatists, not of good-will, but from necessity and the nature of things.

Among the Whigs, an even more important process was at work. By 1850 the disintegration of the Whig party was already far advanced.

Finality in reform had already been found impossible, and Russell and the advanced men were slowly drawing ahead of conservatives like Melbourne and Palmerston. After 1846, the liberalizing power of Peel's steady scientific intelligence was at work, transforming the ideas of his allies, as he had formerly shattered those of his old friends, and, of Peel's followers, Gladstone at least seemed to be looking in the same direction as his master--towards administrative liberalism. The {281} Whig creed and programme were in the melting pot. Now, what made the final product not Whig, but Liberal, was on the whole the increasing influence of the parliamentary Radicals; and in colonial matters the Radicals, who told on the revived and quickened Whig party, were p.r.o.nouncedly in favour of separation. It is too often a.s.sumed that the imperial creed of Durham and Buller was shared in by their fellow Radicals. That is a grave mistake. One may trace a descent towards separatism from Molesworth to Roebuck and Brougham. In Molesworth, the tendency was comparatively slight. No doubt in 1837, under the stress of the news of rebellion, he had proclaimed the end of the British dominion in America as his sincere desire.[52] But he believed in a colonial empire, if England would only guarantee good government. "The emanc.i.p.ation of colonies," he said, in a cooler mood, "must be a question of time and a question, in each case, of special expediency ... a question which would seldom or never arise between a colony and its mother country if all colonies were well governed"; and he explained his language about Canada on grounds of bad government.

"I hope that the people of {282} that country (Lower Canada) will either recover the const.i.tution which we have violated, or become wholly independent of us."[53] It is not necessary to quote Hume's confused but well-intentioned wanderings--views sharing with those of the people whom Hume represented, their crude philanthropy and imperfect clearness. But Roebuck marked a definite stage in advance; for, while he was willing to keep "the connexion," where it could be kept with honour, he seems to have regarded separation as inevitable--"come it must," he said--and his best hopes were that the separation might take place in amity and that a British North American federation might counterbalance the Union to the south.[54] Grote's placid and facile radicalism accepted the growing breach with Canada as the most desirable thing which could happen both to the mother country and the colony; and Brougham directed all his eccentric and ill-ordered energy and eloquence, not only to denounce the Whig leaders, but to proclaim the necessity of the new Canadian republic. "Not only do I consider the possession as worth no breach of the Const.i.tution ... but in a national view I really hold those colonies to {283} be worth nothing. I am well a.s.sured that we shall find them very little worth the cost they have entailed on us, in men, in money, and in injuries to our trade; nay, that their separation will be even now a positive gain, so it be effected on friendly terms, and succeeded by an amicable intercourse."[55]

Separation was indubitably a dogma of philosophic radicalism; and yet it was not so much the influence of this metaphysical and doctrinaire belief which moved Whig opinion. It was rather the plain business-like and matter-of-fact radicalism of the economist statesmen, led by Bright and Cobden. Of the two forces represented by Peel and by Cobden, which completed the formation of a modern Liberal party, the latter was on the whole the stronger; and Bright and Cobden took the views of their Radical predecessors, and out of airy and ineffectual longings created solid political facts. "I cannot disguise from myself," wrote Grey to Elgin in 1850, "that opinion in this country is tending more and more to the rejection of any burden whatever, on account of our colonies"; and the reason for the tendency was certainly the purely economic views to which {284} Cobden was accustoming Britain, and the cogency of the arguments by which he was driving amateur politicians from their earlier indefensible positions. That trade was all-important, and that the operations of trade disregarded the irrelevant facts of nationality and race; that no one community could interfere in the social and political life of another without disaster to both; that the defence of colonies was not only dangerous to peace as provoking suspicious neighbours, but needless expense to the mother country; in short that _laissez-faire_ was the dominating principle in politics, and that _laissez-faire_ shattered the earlier dreams of imperial supremacy and colonial dependency--these were the views introduced by Cobden and Bright into a newly awakened and imperfectly educated England; and they played just such havoc with earlier political ideas, as Darwin and evolution did with pre-existing theological orthodoxy.[56]

It was hardly wonderful then that the Whigs moved steadily onward until they almost acquiesced in the idea of imperial disruption; and, since Peel {285} had left his party moved almost wholly by Cobden's economic propaganda, it was not unnatural that the Peelites should share the views of their Whig allies. It is indeed possible to find some cold consolation in Gladstone's Chester speech in 1855, when he predicted that if only the colonies were left freedom of judgment, it would be hard to say when the day of separation might come.[57] But Grey had already suspected Gladstone of pessimism on the point, and we now know that as an imperialist Gladstone's course from 1855 had a downward tendency. He could not resist the arguments of his Radical friends and teachers.

Almost all the important relevant facts and events which concerned the connection after 1846 a.s.sisted these party movements towards belief in separation.

Grey, whose confidence in the beneficial results of free trade challenged that of Cobden himself, believed that with Protection there vanished an awkward enemy of the connection between Canada and Britain.[58] But Grey was unmistakably doctrinaire on the point.

Elgin warned him, again and again, of "the uneasy feeling which the {286} free-trade policy of the mother country ... has tended to produce in the colonial mind,"[59] and that uneasiness pa.s.sed gradually over to Britain. It would be to trespa.s.s unduly beyond the limits prescribed in this essay to deal with the introduction of the Canadian tariff in 1858 and 1859; yet the statements of Galt who introduced the budget in the latter year strike the reader now, as they must have struck the British reader then, with a sense that the connection was practically at an end: "The government of Canada cannot, through those feelings of deference which they owe to the Imperial authorities, in any measure waive or diminish the right of the people of Canada to decide for themselves both as to the mode and extent to which taxation shall be imposed.... The Imperial government are not responsible for the debts and engagements of Canada. They do not maintain its judicial, educational, or civil service. They contribute nothing to the internal government of the country; and the Provincial Legislature, acting through a ministry directly responsible to it, has to make provision for all these wants. They must necessarily claim and exercise the widest lat.i.tude, as to the nature, and {287} the extent of the burdens, to be placed upon the industry of the people."[60] There was almost everything to be said in favour of this enlightened selfishness; and yet a growing coolness on the part of British legislators was, under the circ.u.mstances, very comprehensible. It was all the more so, because the innovations in Canada influenced British diplomacy in its relations with the United States; and between 1854, the date of Elgin's Reciprocity Treaty, and 1867, British statesmen learned some of the curious ramifications of their original gift of autonomy to Canada. In diplomacy as in economic relations, their appreciation of the value of the connection did not increase.

Parallel with this disruptive tendency in the new economic policy, another in military matters began to make itself felt. As Canada received her successive grants of liberties, and ever new liberties, the imperial authorities began to consider the advisability of withdrawing imperial troops by degrees, and of leaving Canada to meet the ordinary demands of her own defence. Grey and Elgin had corresponded largely on the point; and the result had been a very general reduction of British troops {288} in Canada, the a.s.sumption being that Canada would look to her own protection. To discover the character of the change thus introduced, and its bearing on imperial politics, it again becomes necessary to travel beyond the limit set, and to examine its results between 1860 and 1867. In these years the military situation developed new and alarming possibilities for Canada.

The re-organization of the Canadian tariff excited much ill-feeling in the United States, for it seemed an infringement of the arrangements made by Elgin in 1854.[61] Then followed the _Trent_ episode, the destruction created by the _Alabama_, the questionable policy both of England and of Canada in taking sides, no matter how informally, in the war. In addition, the Irish-American section of the population, which had furnished its share, both of rank and file, and of leaders, to the war, was in those years bitterly hostile to the British Empire, and plotted incessantly some secret stroke which should wound Britain through Canada. The gravest danger threatening British peace and supremacy at that time lay, not in Europe, but along the Canadian {289} frontier, nor would it be fair to say that Britain alone, not Canada, had helped to provoke the threatened American attack. Under these circ.u.mstances, partly because of the expense, but partly also through factiousness and provincial shortsightedness, the Canadian a.s.sembly rejected a scheme for providing an adequate militia, and left a situation quite impossible from the military point of view. Instantly a storm of criticism broke over the heads of the colonies, so bitter and unqualified that there are those who believe that to this day the mutual relations of Britain and Canada have never quite recovered their old sincerity.[62] A member of the Canadian parliament, who was travelling at the time in England, found the country in arms against his province: "You have no idea of the feeling that exists here about the Militia Bill, and the defences of Canada generally. No one will believe that there is not a want of loyalty among the Canadians, and whenever I try to defend Canada, the answer is always the same, that 'the English look for actions not a.s.sertions'; many hard and unjust things are now said about the country, all of which add strength to the Goldwin Smith party, which, after {290} all, is not a very small one; and the Derbyites make no secret of what they would do if they were in power,--let Canada take her chance."[63] Even Earl Grey was prepared, at that crisis, to submit to the British and Canadian parliaments a clear issue, calling on the latter to afford adequate support to the British forces left in British North America, or to permit the last of them to leave a country heedless of its own safety.[64] From that time forth, more especially after Lee, Jackson, Grant, and Sherman had revealed the military possibilities of the American Republic, even military men began to accept the strategic arguments against the retention of Canada as unanswerable, and joined the ranks of those who called for separation. Richard Cartwright, who had opportunities for testing British opinion, more especially among military officers, found a universal agreement that Canada was indefensible, and that separation had better take place, before rather than after war.[65] So John Bright and the leaders of the British army had at last found a point in diplomacy and strategy on which they might agree.

{291}