possession of the substance. The earlier governors sent from England hesitated about giving full effect to the principles of free parliamentary government, and were all much disposed to retain an undue control of public affairs in their own hands. Even as late as 1854 Lord Derby made use of the following language while discussing proposed reforms in the Canadian constitution :

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Nothing like a free and well regulated monarchy could exist for a single moment under such a constitution as that which is now proposed for Canada. From the moment that you pass this constitution the progress must be rapid towards republicanism, if anything could be more really republican than this bill."

In 1850 Lord Elgin felt himself obliged to give a liberal Minister in England his views in the following terms:

"You must renounce the habit of telling the colonies that the colonial is a provisional existence. You must allow them to believe that, without severing the bonds which unite them to Great Britain, they may attain the degree of perfection, and of social and political development, to which organized communities have a right to aspire. There is nothing

which makes the colonial statesman so jealous as rescripts from the Colonial Office suggested by the representations of provincial cliques or interests, who ought, as he contends, to bow before the authorities of Government House, Montreal, rather than those of Downing Street."

Lord Sydenham, notwithstanding his English Whig training, formed an administration of men who had never acted together, and who could not honestly do so in the future. The sole bond of union was the personal influence of the Governor-General himself, who hoped in this way to retain in his own hands an amount of power and influence wholly inconsistent with a system of responsible government.

No vigorous effort was put forth anywhere to demand the inauguration of the new system by a full recognition of its principles. The presence of Robert Baldwin and R. B. Sullivan in company with Wm. H. Draper, in an ordinary administration, sufficiently indicated the compromise character of the principles which would govern it in its administrative capacity, and also in its legislative programme.

The attempt to maintain the old system under a new and attractive name was continued with varying success until the final rupture with Sir Charles Metcalfe, a few months after his arrival in Canada, by the proper action of his then ministers, who formed the first Liberal or Reform administration of Canada, although at least some of them showed by their subsequent action that they held their principles of popular government very lightly. It is hazarding little to say that the principles of responsible government were not well understood by the people, nor much insisted upon by their leaders up to this period, while the representatives of the Crown were either hostile to them or believed them inapplicable in their fulness to Canada. Lord John Russell announced at the time Mr. Poulett Thomson went out as

governor, that "The principal offices in the colony would not be con"sidered as being held by a tenure equivalent to one during good "behaviour, but that the holders would be liable to be called upon to "retire whenever, from motives of public policy or for other reasons, "this should be found expedient.' This practically left it discretionary with the Governor, not with a parliamentary majority, to terminate the official life of a minister. It is probable that Sir Charles Bagot would, had he lived, have taken a more constitutional course, and governed by a parliamentary majority. No one now attempts to defend Lord Metcalfe as having rightfully exercised the functions of a constitutional governor. Mr. Walrond says of him that "Lord Met"calfe with great difficulty formed a conservative administration, and "immediately dissolved his parliament. The new elections gave a "small majority to the conservatives, chiefly due, it was said, to the "exertion of his personal influence; but the success was purchased at "a ruinous cost, for he was now in the position, fatal to a Governor, "of a party man. Lord Elgin was the first Governor-General who determined to govern through his constitutional advisers having the confidence of parliament, and even in his case it was not difficult sometimes to discern traces of his influence over his council; but that influence, though greater than usual, was a legitimate influence. "believe

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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. On certain questions of public policy, especi"ally with regard to church matters, views are propounded which do "not square with my preconceived opinions, and which I acquiesce in 'so long as they do not contravene the fundamental principles of "morality."-(Vide letter to Mr. C. Bruce). Lord Elgin did materially influence his council on the settlement of the clergy reserve question.

Mr. Brown arrived in Canada in time to participate in the renewed battle for popular rights. This battle had, in a sense, been fought, and in a manner won, but the enemy had not been followed up. They were allowed to rally and again get possession of the defences. The fruits of victory were only partially realized by the victors, and now their opponents were in the field headed by the Governor-General in person.

He had by his unconstitutional conduct made himself a mere party leader. Hitherto, under the name of the new system, leading men among reformers did not hesitate about accepting office with men belonging to the opposite party without any security that their responsibility to parliament should take precedence of their obligations to the representative of the Crown. The untimely death of Lord Sydenham, and the illness and short reign of Sir Charles Bagot, left them little time for ascertaining the views of the people or their

capacity for complete self-government, far less to put in operation the only principles upon which a free and intelligent people could be successfully governed. Lord Metcalfe, who succeeded them, was wholly unsuited for the duties of a constitutional governor, from the natural bent of his mind, as well as from the nature of his experience in public life in India and Jamaica. Although an English Whig by his British party connections, he was an autocrat in spirit, and almost immediately on his arrival in Canada he showed his determination to practise what he believed. Apart altogether from the question of right, there was something almost ludicrous in the assumption of this average Englishman that he was better informed and more capable of understanding Canadian affairs, and judging of the persons to be appointed to offices, than were the able Canadian public men he had as ministers. So it was, however; he boldly defied ministers and parliament; a crisis had come which must be met, and the struggle restored to active political life much of the acerbity which had characterized pre-union conflicts, and which it was undoubtedly the desire of Lord Sydenham and Sir Charles Bagot to extinguish.

The bitterness of a previous dominant faction whose governing power had been necessarily destroyed by the new, though imperfect, system established after Lord Durham's visit, was as yet by no means uprooted. The remnants of this faction immediately attached themselves to the skirts of the despotic Governor: they felt that they had now a potential leader. They recalled former times when they sat by the flesh pots" and "did eat bread to the full," and lamented the evil days and principles which brought them "forth into this 'wilderness, to kill the whole assembly with hunger." This class were very zealous and, perhaps, in their own estimation, patriotic; defenders of the usurpation of authority by His Excellency, they saw much to gain and nothing to lose by vigorously taking up his cause.

At this time the restrictions which surrounded the exercise of the franchise limited very much the political power of the people, and correspondingly increased that of the governing authority. Ecclesiastical questions occupied much of the public mind, and assumed proportions of greater or less magnitude in connection with popular rights and the recognition of perfect religious equality, as the ruling party were for or against legislation required to place all churches on an equality in the eye of the law. The champions of the quasi church establishment which had seized the national university and held the greater part of the clergy reserve lands, exhibited as bold and selfasserting a tone as ever. Combinations of clerical magnates and prominent lay disciples sitting in high places, striving to secure denominational superiority, if not supremacy, were constantly witnessed, and challenged the attention of all liberal patriots.

The struggle for freedom in religious questions from state control, which had been many years maintained by the majority in the Scottish national church, had just terminated in the secession of that majority from the establishment. The conflict extended itself to the Canadian presbyterian body, some members of which had accepted a share of the clergy reserve funds, and had supplied a strong detachment to give a vigorous support to the Family Compact oligarchy. It was very important that so influential and numerous a body should range itself on the side of perfect religious equality. A considerable number of its adherents strove to maintain the then existing state of affairs, and naturally ranged themselves on the Governor's side, though the vast majority held and acted on anti-state church principles, so far as related to this colony, whatever may have been their abstract views as to establishments. All the retrogressive elements of society were called into active life in order to sustain the reactionary GovernorGeneral. There was a sudden resurrection of evil principles of government which were supposed to have been buried too deep to be restored. The barricade of vice-regal power was deemed sufficient to shelter those who aided him in degrading the true legitimate representation of legislative power and the fountain of administrative authority to a secondary place in the government of the country.

Mr. Brown's advent to Canada at this juncture was, under the existing circumstances, a great accession to the liberal ranks; he was the means, to a great extent, of precipitating an inevitable discussion on all the questions involved, in a manner not previously known, and to an extent not anticipated by the leaders of either party. Some very prominent liberals in political life were more or less conservative on Church questions, and evidently doubted the right or at least the wisdom of removing an injustice which had the sanction of the law for its existence. So far as this remark applies to certain prominent individuals, it will be dealt with in another place. The field of political life was open to any enterprising publicist bold enough to do battle for the great mass of the people against a most dangerous usurpation. The ministers, whose responsibility to parliament had been treated so lightly by the Governor-General, were not themselves fully united on any course of action; some of them openly sided with that functionary. The press was feeble and ineffective, and therefore rendered but little support to the ministers who did understand the true nature of the crisis, and the necessity of at once meeting the issue challenged by the highest authority in the land. The field so invitingly open for press and orator was at once taken possession of by the new-comer; and very soon the name of George Brown was identified with the most vigorous action and the most powerful newspaper writing ever known in Canada. That action and advocacy very

soon commanded an influence more powerful than had ever been evoked by any one man, and remains to this day strongly impressed on Canadian public life. At this day it seems strange that so much vigour and laboured effort should have been necessary to resist an unconstitutional exercise of power by the representative of the Crown in Canada; but we must remember that this was precisely the kind of action which up to a very late,period commanded the support of English ministers. So late as 1873 we find Lord Kimberley gravely telling Lord Dufferin that he was to act without the advice of his ministers when he deemed it necessary. Mr. Brown did not commit the opposite fault of denouncing the fountain of authority because of the wrong exercise of power by the representative of the Crown in Canada, but opposed his action by a strictly constitutional appeal to the people, seconding in an effective manner the action of the expelled ministers.

While there could be no doubt as to the final issue in the unseemly struggle which the Governor-General forced upon the country, there remained much anxiety as to the duration of the interregnum during which constitutional authority would practically be suspended. The final disposal of great measures of reform, such as the clergy reserves and King's College questions, which had agitated the country so long, were necessarily delayed. The struggle for irresponsible power absorbed all the attention and exhausted the mental resources of the Governor-General and the imbecile administration which succeeded the government that resigned on September 30th, 1843. For over two months there was no minister but Mr. Dominick Daly, who agreed with his late colleagues in all their acts and measures, until they gave effect to their principles by resigning, when he determined to remain in office. For the succeeding nine months the ministry consisted of Messrs. Viger, Daly and Draper. Practically there was no government - until after the general election in the autumn of 1844. The Governor General in the meantime defended himself as best he could by means of letters and pamphlets, some of which were written by one gentleman who had once been a liberal M.P., and who found his well known inordinate vanity gratified by defending the usurping Governor. Some were written by a reverend gentleman whom few would have suspected of a willingness to defend conduct like Lord Metcalfe's. gentlemen had in early days been warm defenders of popular rights, though now enlisted in the ranks of the defenders of absolutism. One was shortly afterwards appointed to a highly lucrative office, and though it was vehemently asserted that the office was not the price of the advocate, the public could not avoid connecting the one with the other, to the great disadvantage of the appointee. The lay apostle made himself friends in the ranks of his former opponents. The

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