Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin Part 10

I replied that while I regretted as much as he could do the paragraph to which he referred, I thought he somewhat mistook its import: that I believed no man living was more opposed to the dismemberment of the Empire than Lord J. Russell: that I did not conceive that he had any intention of deserting the Colonies, or of inviting them to separate from England; but that he had in the sentence in question given utterance to a purely speculative, and in my judgment most fallacious, opinion, which, was shared, I feared, by very many persons both in England and the Colonies: that I held it to be a perfectly unsound and most dangerous theory, that British Colonies could not attain maturity without separation, and that my interest in labouring with them to bring into full play the principles of Const.i.tutional Government in Canada would entirely cease if I could be persuaded to adopt it. I said all this I must confess, however, not without misgiving, for I could not but be sensible that, in spite of all my allegations to the contrary, 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. I left the Council Chamber disheartened, with the feeling that Lord J. Russell's reference to the manhood of Colonies was more likely to be followed by practical consequences than Lamartine's famous '_quand l'heure aura sonne_' invocation to oppressed nationalities. It is possible, indeed, that I exaggerate to myself the probable effects of this declaration. Politicians of the Baldwin stamp, with distinct views and aims, who having struggled to obtain a Government on British principles, desire to preserve it, are not, I fear, very numerous in Canada; the great ma.s.s move on with very indefinite purposes, and not much inquiring whither they are going. Of one thing, however, I am confident; there cannot be any peace, contentment, progress, or credit in this colony while the idea obtains that the connection with England is a millstone about its neck which should be cast off, as soon as it can be conveniently managed. What man in his senses would invest his money in the public securities of a country where questions affecting the very foundations on which public credit rests are in perpetual agitation; or would settle in it at all if he could find for his foot a more stable resting-place elsewhere? I may, perhaps, be expressing myself too unreservedly with reference to opinions emanating from a source which I am no less disposed than bound to respect. As I have the means, however, of feeling the pulse of the colonists in this most feverish region, I consider it to be always my duty to furnish you with as faithful a record as possible of our diagnostics. And, after all, may I not with all submission ask, Is not the question at issue a most momentous one? What is it indeed but this: Is the Queen of England to be the Sovereign of an Empire, growing, expanding, strengthening itself from age to age, striking its roots deep into fresh earth and drawing new supplies of vitality from virgin soils? Or is she to be for all essential purposes of might and power, Monarch of Great Britain and Ireland merely--her place and that of her line in the world's history determined by the productiveness of 12,000 square miles of a coal formation, which is being rapidly exhausted, and the duration of the social and political organization over which she presides dependent on the annual expatriation, with a view to its eventual alienization, of the surplus swarms of her born subjects? If Lord J. Russell, instead of concluding his excellent speech with a declaration of opinion which, as I read it, and as I fear others will read it, seems to make it a point of honour with the Colonists to prepare for separation, had contented himself with resuming the statements already made in its course, with showing that neither the Government nor Parliament could have any object in view in their Colonial policy but the good of the Colonies, and the establishment of the relation between them and the mother-country on the basis of mutual affection; that, as the idea of maintaining a Colonial Empire for the purpose of exercising dominion or dispensing patronage had been for some time abandoned, and that of regarding it as a hot-bed for forcing commerce and manufactures more recently renounced, a greater amount of free action and self-government might be conceded to British Colonies without any breach of Imperial Unity, or the violation of any principle of Imperial Policy, than had under any scheme yet devised fallen to the lot of the component parts of any Federal or imperial system; if he had left these great truths to work their effect without hazarding a conjecture which will, I fear, be received as a suggestion, with respect to the course which certain wayward members of the Imperial family may be expected to take in a contingency still confessedly remote, it would, I venture with great deference to submit, in so far at least as public feeling in the Colonies is concerned, have been safer and better.

[Sidenote: 'Separation' and 'annexation.']

You draw, I know, a distinction between separation with a view to annexation and separation with a view to independence. You say the former is an act of treason, the latter a natural and legitimate step in progress. There is much plausibility doubtless in this position, but, independently of the fact that no one advocates independence in these Colonies except as a means to the end, annexation, is it really tenable? If you take your stand on the hypothesis that the Colonial existence is one with which the Colonists ought to rest satisfied, then, I think, you are ent.i.tled to denounce, without reserve or measure, those who propose for some secondary object to subst.i.tute the Stars and Stripes for the Union Jack. But if, on the contrary, you a.s.sume that it is a provisional state, which admits of but a stunted and partial growth, and out of which all communities ought in the course of nature to strive to pa.s.s, how can you refuse to permit your Colonies here, when they have arrived at the proper stage in their existence, to place themselves in a condition which is at once most favourable to their security and to their perfect national development? What reasons can you a.s.sign for the refusal, except such as are founded on selfishness, and are, therefore, morally worthless?

If you say that your great lubberly boy is too big for the nursery, and that you have no other room for him in your house, how can you decline to allow him to lodge with his elder brethren over the way, when the attempt to keep up an establishment for himself would seriously embarra.s.s him?

_To the Earl Grey._

Toronto: November 1, 1850.

Sir H. Bulwer spent four days with us, and for many reasons I am glad that he has been here. He leaves us knowing more of Canada than he did when he came. I think too that both he and Sir E. Head return to their homes re-a.s.sured on many points of our internal policy, on which they felt doubtful before, and much enlightened as to the real position of men and things in this province.

[Sidenote: Self-government not republican.]

With one important truth 1 have laboured to impress them, and I hope successfully. It is this: that the faithful carrying out of the principles of Const.i.tutional Government is a departure from the American model, not an approximation to it, and, therefore, a departure from republicanism in its only workable shape. Of the soundness of this view of our case I entertain no doubt whatever; and though I meet with few persons to whom it seems to have occurred (for the common belief of superficial observers is that we are republicanising the colonies), I seldom fail in bringing it borne to the understanding of any intelligent person with whom I have occasion to discuss it. The fact is, that the American system is our old Colonial system with, in certain cases, the principle of popular election subst.i.tuted for that of nomination by the Crown. Mr. Filmore stands to his Congress very much in the same relation in which I stood to my a.s.sembly in Jamaica. There is the same absence of effective responsibility in the conduct of legislation, the same want of concurrent action between the parts of the political machine. The whole business of legislation in the American Congress, as well as in the State Legislatures, is conducted in the manner in which railway business was conducted in the House of Commons at a time when it is to be feared that, notwithstanding the high standard of honour in the British Parliament, there was a good deal of jobbing. For instance our Reciprocity measure was pressed by us at Washington last session, just as a Railway Bill in 1845 or 1846 would have been pressed in Parliament. There was no Government to deal with. The interests of the Union, as a whole and distinct from local and sectional interests, had no organ in the representative bodies; it was all a question of canva.s.sing this member of Congress or the other. It is easy to perceive that, under such a system, jobbing must become not the exception but the rule.

Now I feel very strongly, that when a people have been once thoroughly accustomed to the working of such a Parliamentary system as ours, they never will consent to revert to this clumsy irresponsible mechanism.

Whether we shall be able to carry on the war here long enough to allow the practice of Const.i.tutional Government and the habits of mind which it engenders to take root in these provinces, may be doubtful. But it may be worth your while to consider whether these views do not throw some light on affairs in Europe. If you part with const.i.tutional monarchies there, you may possibly get something much more democratic; but you cannot, I am confident, get American republicanism. It is the fashion to say, 'of course not; we cannot get their federal system;'

but this is not the only reason, there are others that lie deeper.

Look at France, where they are trying to jumble up the two things, a head of the State responsible to the people who elect him, and a ministry responsible to the Parliament.

_To the Duke of Newcastle._

March 26, 1853.

It is argued that, by the severance of the connection, British statesmen would be relieved of an onerous responsibility for colonial acts of which they cannot otherwise rid themselves. Is there not, however, some fallacy in this? If by conceding absolute independence the British Parliament can acquit itself of the obligation to impose its will upon the Colonists, in the matter, for instance, of a Church Establishment, can it not attain the same end by declaring that, as respects such local questions, the Colonists are free to judge for themselves? How can it be justifiable to adopt the former of these expedients, and sacrilegious to act upon the latter?

The true policy, in my humble judgment, is to throw the whole weight of responsibility on those who exercise the real power, for, after all, the sense of responsibility is the best security against the abuse of power; and, as respects the connection, to act and speak on this hypothesis--that there is nothing in it to check the development of healthy national life in these young communities. I believe that this policy will be found to be not only the safest, but also (an important consideration in these days) the most economical.

_To the Earl Grey._

Toronto: December 17, 1850.

Although, as you observe, it seems to be rather idle in us to correspond on what may be termed speculative questions, when we have so much pressing business on hand, I venture to say a few words in reply to your letter of the 23rd ult., firstly, because I presume to dissent from some of the opinions which you advance in it; and, secondly, because I have a practical object of no small importance in view in calling your attention to the contrasts which present themselves in the working of our inst.i.tutions, and those of our neighbours in the States. My practical object is this: when you concede to the Colonists Const.i.tutional Government in its integrity, you are reproached with leading them to Republicanism and the American Union. The same reproach is hurled with anathemas against your humble servant. Lord Stanley, if I rightly remember, in the debate on Ryland's case last year, stated amid cheers, that if you were in the habit of consulting the Ministers of the Crown in the Colony before you placed persons on the colonial pension List, he had no hesitation in saying you had already established a republic in Canada! Now I believe, on the contrary, that it may be demonstrated that the concession of Const.i.tutional Government has a tendency to draw the Colonists the other way; firstly, because it slakes that thirst for self-government which seizes on all British communities when they approach maturity; and, secondly, because it habituates the Colonists to the working of a political mechanism, which is both intrinsically superior to that of the Americans, and more unlike it than our old Colonial system.

Adopting, however, the views with respect to the superiority of the mechanism of our political system to that of our neighbours, which I have ventured to urge, you proceed to argue that the remedy is in their hands; that without abandoning their republicanism they and their _confreres_ in France have nothing to do but to dismiss their Presidents and to subst.i.tute our const.i.tution without a King, the body without the head, for their own, to get rid of the inconveniences which they now experience; and you quote with approbation, as an embodiment of this idea, the project submitted by M. Grevy and the Red Republicans to the French Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly.

[Sidenote: Value of the monarchical principle.]

Now here I confess I cannot go along with you, and the difference between us is a very material one; for if the monarch be not an indispensable element in our const.i.tutional mechanism, and if we can secure all the advantages of that mechanism without him, I have drawn the wrong moral from the facts. You say that the system the Red Republicans would have established in France would have been the nearest possible approach to our own. It is possible, I think, that we may be tending towards the like issues. It is possible, perhaps probable, that as the House of Commons becomes more democratic in its composition, and consequently more arrogant in its bearing, it may cast off the shackles which the other powers of the State impose on its self-will, and even utterly abolish them; but I venture to believe that those who last till that day comes, will find that they are living under a very different const.i.tution from that which we now enjoy; that they have traversed the interval which separates a temperate and cautious administration of public affairs resting on the balance of powers and interests, from a reckless and overbearing tyranny based on the caprices and pa.s.sions of an absolute and irresponsible body. You talk somewhat lightly of the check of the Crown, although you acknowledge its utility. But is it indeed so light a matter, even as our const.i.tution now works? Is it a light matter that the Crown should have the power of dissolving Parliament; in other words, of deposing the tyrant at will? Is it a light matter that for several months in each year the House of Commons should be in abeyance, during which period the nation looks on Ministers not as slaves of Parliament but servants of the Crown? Is it a light matter that there should still be such respect for the monarchical principle, that the servants of that visible ent.i.ty yclept the Crown are enabled to carry on much of the details of internal and foreign administration without consulting Parliament, and even without its cognisance? Or do you suppose that the Red Republicans, when they advocated the nomination of a Ministry of the House of a.s.sembly with a revocable _mandat_, intended to create a Frankenstein endowed with powers in some cases paramount to, and in others running parallel with, the authority of the omnipotent body to which it owed its existence? My own impression is, that they meant a set of delegates to be appointed, who should exercise certain functions of legislative initiation and executive patronage so long as they reflected clearly, in the former the pa.s.sions, and in the latter the interests of the majority for the time being, and no longer.

It appears to me, I must confess, that if you have a republican form of government in a great country, with complicated internal and external relations, you must either separate the executive and legislative departments, as in the United States, or submit to a tyranny of the majority, not the more tolerable because it is capricious and wielded by a tyrant with many heads. Of the two evils I prefer the former.

Consider, for a moment, how much more violent the proceedings of majorities in the American Legislatures would be, how much more reckless the appeals to popular pa.s.sion, how much more frequently the permanent interests of the nation and the rights of individuals and cla.s.ses would be sacrificed to the object of raising political capital for present uses, if debates or discussions affected the tenure of office. I have no idea that the executive and legislative departments of the State can be made to work together with a sufficient degree of harmony to give the maximum of strength and of mutual independence to secure freedom and the rights of minorities, except under the presidency of Monarchy, the moral influence of which, so long as a nation is monarchical in its sentiments, cannot, of course, be measured merely by its recognised power.

[Sidenote: Influence of a Governor, under responsible Government.]

Those who are most ready to concur in these views of Colonial Government, and to admire the vigour with which they were defended, and the consistency with which they were carried out, may still be inclined to ask whether the maintenance of them did not involve a species of official suicide: whether the theory of the responsibility of provincial Ministers to the provincial Parliament, and of the consequent duty of the Governor to remain absolutely neutral in the strife of political parties, had not a necessary tendency to degrade his office into that of a mere _Roi faineant_. He had in 1849, as Sir C. Adderley expresses it, 'maintained the principle of responsible Government at the risk of his life.' Was the result of his hard-won victory only to empty himself of all but the mere outward show of power and authority?

Such questions he was always ready to meet with an uncompromising negative.

'I have tried,' he said, both systems. In Jamaica there was no responsible Government: but I had not half the power I have here with my const.i.tutional and changing Cabinet.' Even on the Vice-regal throne of India, he missed, at first, at least, something of the authority and influence which had been his, as Const.i.tutional Governor, in Canada.[5] He was fully conscious, however, of the difficult nature of the position, and that it was only tenable on condition of being penetrated, or _possessed_, as he said, with the idea of its tenability. In this strain he wrote to his intimate friend. Mr. c.u.mming Bruce, in September 1852, with reference to a report that he was to be recalled by the Ministry which had recently come into power.

As respects the _matter_ of the report, I am disposed to believe that, viewing the question with reference to personal interests exclusively, my removal from hence would not be any disadvantage to me. But, as to my work here--there is the rub. Is it to be all undone?

On this point I must speak frankly. I have been possessed (I use the word advisedly, for I fear that most persons in England still consider it a case of _possession_) with the idea that it is possible to maintain on this soil of North America, and in the face of Republican America, British connection and British inst.i.tutions, if you give the latter freely and trustingly. Faith, when it is sincere, is always catching; and I have imparted this faith, more or less thoroughly, to all Canadian statesmen with whom I have been in official relationship since 1848, and to all intelligent Englishmen with whom I have come in contact since 1850--as witness Lord Wharncliffe, Waldegrave, Tremenheere, &c. &c. Now if the Governor ceases to possess this faith, or to have the faculty of imparting it, I confess I fear that, ere long, it will become extinct in other b.r.e.a.s.t.s likewise. I believe that it is equally an error to imagine with one old-fashioned party, that you can govern such dependencies as this on the antiquated bureaucratic principle, by means of rescripts from Downing Street, in defiance of the popular legislatures, and on the hypothesis that one local faction monopolises all the loyalty of the Colony; and to suppose with the Radicals that all is done when you have simply told the colonists 'to go to the devil their own way.' I believe, on the contrary, that there is more room for the exercise of influence on the part of the Governor under my system than under any that ever was before devised; an influence, however, wholly moral--an influence of suasion, sympathy, and moderation, which softens the temper while it elevates the aims of local polities. It is true that on certain questions of public policy, especially with regard to Church matters, views are propounded by my ministers which do not exactly square with my pre-conceived opinions, and which I acquiesce in, so long as they do not contravene the fundamental principles of morality, from a conviction that they are in accordance with the general sentiments of the community.

It is true that I do not seek the commendation bestowed on Sir F. Head for bringing men into his councils from the liberal party, and telling them that they should enjoy only a partial confidence; thereby allowing them to retain their position as tribunes of the people in conjunction with the _prestige_ of advisers of the Crown by enabling them to shirk responsibility for any acts of government which are unpopular. It is true that I have always said to my advisers, 'while you continue my advisers you shall enjoy nay unreserved confidence; and _en revanche_ you shall be responsible for all acts of government.'

But it is no less certain that there is not one of them who does not know that no inducement on earth would prevail with me to bring me to acquiesce in any measures which seemed to me repugnant to public morals, or Imperial interests; and I must say that, far from finding in my advisers a desire to entrap me into proceedings of which 1 might disapprove, I find a tendency constantly increasing to attach the utmost value to my opinion on all questions, local or generals that arise.

The deep sense which he entertained of the importance of a correct understanding on this point is shown by his devoting to it the closing words of the last official despatch which he wrote from Quebec, on December 18, 1854.

I readily admit that the maintenance of the position and due influence of the Governor is one of the most critical problems that have to be solved in the adaptation of Parliamentary Government to the Colonial system; and that it is difficult to over-estimate the importance which attaches to its satisfactory solution. As the Imperial Government and Parliament gradually withdraw from legislative interference, and from the exercise of patronage in Colonial affairs, the office of Governor tends to become, in the most emphatic sense of the term, the link which connects the Mother-country and the Colony, and his influence the means by which harmony of action between the local and imperial authorities is to be preserved. It is not, however, in my humble judgment, by evincing an anxious desire to stretch to the utmost const.i.tutional principles in his favour, but, on the contrary, by the frank acceptance of the conditions of the Parliamentary system, that this influence can be most surely extended and confirmed. Placed by his position above the strife of parties--holding office by a tenure less precarious than the ministers who surround him--having no political interests to serve but that of the community whose affairs he is appointed to administer--his opinion cannot fail, when all cause for suspicion and jealousy is removed, to have great weight in the Colonial Councils, while he is set at liberty to const.i.tute himself in an especial manner the patron of those larger and higher interests-- such interests, for example, as those of education, and of moral and material progress in all its branches--which, unlike the contests of party, unite instead of dividing the members of the body politic. The mention of such influences as an appreciable force in the administration of public affairs may provoke a sneer on the part of persons who have no faith in any appeal which is not addressed to the lowest motives of human conduct; but those who have juster views of our common nature, and who have seen influences that are purely moral wielded with judgment, will not be disposed to deny to them a high degree of efficacy.

[Sidenote: Defence of the colony,]

Closely akin to the question of the maintenance of the connection between the Colony and Great Britain, especially when viewed as affected by the commercial and financial condition of the former, was the question of throwing upon it the expense of defending itself; a problem which was then only beginning to attract the attention of liberal statesmen. For though it may be true that the practice of defending the Colonies with the troops and at the cost of the mother-country was an innovation upon the earlier Colonial system, introduced at the time of the great war, it is not the less certain that to the generation of colonists that had grown up since that time the abandonment of it had all the effect of novelty. It was a question on which, as affecting Canada, Lord Elgin was in a peculiar degree 'between two fires;' exposed to pressure at once from the Government at home and from his own Ministers, and seeing much to agree with in the views of both.

[Sidenote: against internal disorder;]

In the first place, as regards the preservation of order within the province, he thought it clear that, as a general rule, the cost of this should fall on the Colony itself wherever it enjoyed self-government; but there were peculiar circ.u.mstances in Canada which made him hesitate to apply the doctrine unreservedly there. Owing to the contiguity of the United States, the abettors of any mischief in the Colony might count on help constantly at hand, not indeed from the Government of the Union, which never acted disloyally,[6] but from the Unruly spirits that were apt to infest the borders; and it seemed to him at least doubtful, whether both justice and policy did not require that Great Britain should afford to the supporters of order some material aid to counterbalance this. Again, the peculiar social and political state of Lower Canada, arising mainly from the conditions under which it had pa.s.sed into the hands of England, and from the manner in which England had fulfilled those conditions, created special difficulties as to the maintenance of internal quiet. On the one hand England's respect for treaty obligations had induced her to resist all attempts to break down by fraud or violence those rights and usages of the French population, which had tended to keep alive among them feelings of distinctive nationality; while on the other hand the effect of the working of the old system of colonial administration had been to confer upon British or American settlers a disproportionate share in the government of the province. It followed that the French-Canadian majority and the Anglo- Saxon minority were dwelling side by side in that section of the Colony without, to any sensible extent, intermingling, and under conditions of equilibrium which could never have been established but for the presence on the same scene of a directing and overruling power. In this state of things, while confidently hoping that an impartial adherence to the principles of const.i.tutional government would by degrees obliterate all national distinctions, he saw reason to fear that the sudden withdrawal of Britain's moderating control, whether as the result of separation or of a change of Imperial policy, would be followed at no distant period by a serious collision between the races.

[Sidenote: against foreign attack.]

Similarly, as regards defence against foreign attack, while agreeing that a self-governing colony should be self-dependent, Lord Elgin felt that the peculiar position of Canada, having no foreign attack to apprehend except hi quarrels of England's making, made her case somewhat exceptional. And any wholesale withdrawal of British troops he strongly deprecated, as likely to imperil her connection with the mother-country, if it took place suddenly, before the old notion--the 'axiom affirmed again and again by Secretaries of State and Governors, that England was bound to pay all expenses connected with the defence of the Colony'--had lost its hold on men's minds, and a feeling of the responsibilities attaching to self- government had had time to grow up.

His first letter on the subject is to Lord Grey, written so early as April 26,1848:--

The question which you raise in your last letter respecting the military defence of Canada is a large one, and, before irrevocable steps be taken, it may be well to look at it on all sides.

The first consideration which offers itself in connection with this subject is this, 'Why does Canada require to be defended, and against whom?' A very large number of persons in this community believe that there is only one power from which they have anything to dread, and that this power would be converted into the fastest friend, bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh, if the connection with Great Britain were abandoned.

In this respect the position of Canada is peculiar. When you say to any other colony 'England declines to be longer at the expense of protecting you,' you at once reveal to it the extent of its dependence and the value of Imperial support. But it is not so here. Withdraw your protection from Canada, and she has it in her power to obtain the security against aggression enjoyed by Michigan or Maine: about as good security, I must allow, as any which is to be obtained at the present time.

But you may observe in reply to this, 'You cannot get the security which Michigan and Maine enjoy for nothing; you must purchase it by the surrender of your custom houses and public lands, the proceeds of which will be diverted from their present uses and applied to others, at the discretion of a body in which you will have comparatively little to say.' The argument is a powerful one, so long as England consents to bear the cost of the defence of the Colony, but its force is much lessened when the inhabitants are told that they must look to their own safety, because the mother-country can no longer afford to take care of them.

On the other hand very weighty reasons may be adduced in favour of the policy of requiring the province to bear some portion at least of the charge of its own protection. The adoption of free-trade, although its advocates must believe that it tends to make the Colonies in point of fact less chargeable than heretofore, will doubtless render the English people more than ever jealous of expenditure incurred on their behalf. I am, moreover, of opinion, that the system of relieving the colonists altogether from the duty of self-defence is attended with injurious effects upon themselves. It checks the growth of national and manly morals. Men seldom think anything worth preserving for which they are never asked to make a sacrifice.

My view, therefore, would be that it is desirable that a movement in the direction which you Lave indicated should take place, but that it ought to be made with much caution.

The present is not a favourable moment for experiments. British statesmen, even Secretaries of State, have got into the habit lately of talking of the maintenance of the connection between Great Britain and Canada with so much indifference, that a change of system in respect of military defence incautiously carried out, might be presumed by many to argue, on the part of the mother-country, a disposition to prepare the way for separation. Add to this, that you effected, only a few years ago, a union between the Upper and Lower Provinces by arbitrary means, and for objects the avowal of which has profoundly irritated the French population; that still more recently you have deprived Canada of her princ.i.p.al advantages in the British markets; that France and Ireland are in flames, and that nearly half of the population of this Colony are French, nearly half of the remainder Irish.

That Canada felt no need of bulwarks except against England's foes was a point on which he constantly insisted. On one occasion he wrote:--