LORD ELGIN
by
SIR JOHN GEORGE BOURINOT
THE MAKERS OF CANADA
EDITED BY DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT, F.R.S.C., AND PELHAM EDGAR, PH.D.
Edition De Luxe
Toronto, 1903
[Illustration: "Elgin a Kincardine."]
EDITORS' NOTE
The late Sir John Bourinot had completed and revised the following
pages some months before his lamented death. The book represents more
satisfactorily, perhaps, than anything else that he has written the
author's breadth of political vision and his concrete mastery of
historical fact. The life of Lord Elgin required to be written by one
possessed of more than ordinary insight into the interesting aspects
of constitutional law. That it has been singularly well presented must
be the conclusion of all who may read this present narrative.
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I: EARLY CAREER 1
II: POLITICAL CONDITION IN CANADA 17
III: POLITICAL DIFFICULTIES 41
IV: THE INDEMNIFICATION ACT 61
V: THE END OF THE LAFONTAINE-BALDWIN MINISTRY, 1851 85
VI: THE HINCKS-MORIN MINISTRY 107
VII: THE HISTORY OF THE CLERGY RESERVES (1791-1854) 143
VIII: SEIGNIORIAL TENURE 171
IX: CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES 189
X: FAREWELL TO CANADA 203
XI: POLITICAL PROGRESS 227
XII: A COMPARISON OF SYSTEMS 239
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 269
INDEX 271
CHAPTER I
EARLY CAREER
The Canadian people have had a varied experience in governors
appointed by the imperial state. At the very commencement of British
rule they were so fortunate as to find at the head of affairs Sir Guy
Carleton--afterwards Lord Dorchester--who saved the country during the
American revolution by his military genius, and also proved himself an
able civil governor in his relations with the French Canadians, then
called "the new subjects," whom he treated in a fair and generous
spirit that did much to make them friendly to British institutions. On
the other hand they have had military men like Sir James Craig,
hospitable, generous, and kind, but at the same time incapable of
understanding colonial conditions and aspirations, ignorant of the
principles and working of representative institutions, and too ready
to apply arbitrary methods to the administration of civil affairs.
Then they have had men who were suddenly drawn from some inconspicuous
position in the parent state, like Sir Francis Bond Head, and allowed
by an apathetic or ignorant colonial office to prove their want of
discretion, tact, and even common sense at a very critical stage of
Canadian affairs. Again there have been governors of the highest rank
in the peerage of England, like the Duke of Richmond, whose
administration was chiefly remarkable for his success in aggravating
national animosities in French Canada, and whose name would now be
quite forgotten were it not for the unhappy circumstances of his
death.[1] Then Canadians have had the good fortune of the presence of
Lord Durham at a time when a most serious state of affairs
imperatively demanded that ripe political knowledge, that cool
judgment, and that capacity to comprehend political grievances which
were confessedly the characteristics of this eminent British
statesman. Happily for Canada he was followed by a keen politician and
an astute economist who, despite his overweening vanity and his
tendency to underrate the ability of "those fellows in the
colonies"--his own words in a letter to England--was well able to
gauge public sentiment accurately and to govern himself accordingly
during his short term of office. Since the confederation of the
provinces there has been a succession of distinguished governors, some
bearing names famous in the history of Great Britain and Ireland, some
bringing to the discharge of their duties a large knowledge of public
business gained in the government of the parent state and her wide
empire, some gifted with a happy faculty of expressing themselves with
ease and elegance, and all equally influenced by an earnest desire to
fill their important position with dignity, impartiality, and
affability.
But eminent as have been the services of many of the governors whose
memories are still cherished by the people of Canada, no one among
them stands on a higher plane than James, eighth earl of Elgin and
twelfth earl of Kincardine, whose public career in Canada I propose to
recall in the following narrative. He possessed to a remarkable degree
those qualities of mind and heart which enabled him to cope most
successfully with the racial and political difficulties which met him
at the outset of his administration, during a very critical period of
Canadian history. Animated by the loftiest motives, imbued with a deep
sense of the responsibilities of his office, gifted with a rare power
of eloquent expression, possessed of sound judgment and infinite
discretion, never yielding to dictates of passion but always
determined to be patient and calm at moments of violent public
excitement, conscious of the advantages of compromise and conciliation
in a country peopled like Canada, entering fully into the aspirations
of a young people for self-government, ready to concede to French
Canadians their full share in the public councils, anxious to build up
a Canadian nation without reference to creed or race--this
distinguished nobleman must be always placed by a Canadian historian
in the very front rank of the great administrators happily chosen from
time to time by the imperial state for the government of her dominions
beyond the sea. No governor-general, it is safe to say, has come
nearer to that ideal, described by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, when
secretary of state for the colonies, in a letter to Sir George Bowen,
himself distinguished for the ability with which he presided over the
affairs of several colonial dependencies. "Remember," said Lord
Lytton, to give that eminent author and statesman his later title,
"that the first care of a governor in a free colony is to shun the
reproach of being a party man. Give all parties, and all the
ministries formed, the fairest play.... After all, men are governed as
much by the heart as by the head. Evident sympathy in the progress of
the colony; traits of kindness, generosity, devoted energy, where
required for the public weal; a pure exercise of patronage; an utter
absence of vindictiveness or spite; the fairness that belongs to
magnanimity: these are the qualities that make governors powerful,
while men merely sharp and clever may be weak and detested."
In the following chapters it will be seen that Lord Elgin fulfilled
this ideal, and was able to leave the country in the full confidence
that he had won the respect, admiration, and even affection of all
classes of the Canadian people. He came to the country when there
existed on all sides doubts as to the satisfactory working of the
union of 1840, suspicions as to the sincerity of the imperial
authorities with respect to the concession of responsible government,
a growing antagonism between the two nationalities which then, as
always, divided the province. A very serious economic disturbance was
crippling the whole trade of the country, and made some
persons--happily very few in number--believe for a short time that
independence, or annexation to the neighbouring republic, was
preferable to continued connection with a country which so grudgingly
conceded political rights to the colony, and so ruthlessly overturned
the commercial system on which the province had been so long
dependent. When he left Canada, Lord Elgin knew beyond a shadow of a
doubt that the two nationalities were working harmoniously for the
common advantage of the province, that the principles of responsible
government were firmly established, and that the commercial and
industrial progress of the country was fully on an equality with its
political development.
The man who achieved these magnificent results could claim an ancestry
to which a Scotsman would point with national pride. He could trace
his lineage to the ancient Norman house of which "Robert the Bruce"--a
name ever dear to the Scottish nation--was the most distinguished
member. He was born in London on July 20th, 1811. His father was a
general in the British army, a representative peer in the British
parliament from 1790-1840, and an ambassador to several European
courts; but he is best known to history by the fact that he seriously
crippled his private fortunes by his purchase, while in the East, of
that magnificent collection of Athenian art which was afterwards
bought at half its value by the British government and placed in the
British Museum, where it is still known as the "Elgin Marbles." From
his father, we are told by his biographer,[2] he inherited "the genial
and playful spirit which gave such a charm to his social and parental
relations, and which helped him to elicit from others the knowledge of
which he made so much use in the many diverse situations of his after
life." The deep piety and the varied culture of his mother "made her
admirably qualified to be the depository of the ardent thoughts and
aspirations of his boyhood." At Oxford, where he completed his
education after leaving Eton, he showed that unselfish spirit and
consideration for the feelings of others which were the recognized
traits of his character in after life. Conscious of the unsatisfactory
state of the family's fortunes, he laboured strenuously even in
college to relieve his father as much as possible of the expenses of
his education. While living very much to himself, he never failed to
win the confidence and respect even at this youthful age of all those
who had an opportunity of knowing his independence of thought and
judgment. Among his contemporaries were Mr. Gladstone, afterwards
prime minister; the Duke of Newcastle, who became secretary of state
for the colonies and was chief adviser of the Prince of Wales--now
Edward VII--during his visit to Canada in 1860; and Lord Dalhousie and
Lord Canning, both of whom preceded him in the governor-generalship of
India. In the college debating club he won at once a very
distinguished place. "I well remember," wrote Mr. Gladstone, many
years later, "placing him as to the natural gift of eloquence at the
head of all those I knew either at Eton or at the University." He took
a deep interest in the study of philosophy. In him--to quote the
opinion of his own brother, Sir Frederick Bruce, "the Reason and
Understanding, to use the distinctions of Coleridge, were both largely
developed, and both admirably balanced. ... He set himself to work to
form in his own mind a clear idea of each of the constituent parts of
the problem with which he had to deal. This he effected partly by
reading, but still more by conversation with special men, and by that
extraordinary logical power of mind and penetration which not only
enabled him to get out of every man all he had in him, but which
revealed to these men themselves a knowledge of their own imperfect
and crude conceptions, and made them constantly unwilling witnesses or
reluctant adherents to views which originally they were prepared to
oppose...." The result was that, "in an incredibly short time he
attained an accurate and clear conception of the essential facts
before him, and was thus enabled to strike out a course which he could
consistently pursue amid all difficulties, because it was in harmony
with the actual facts and the permanent conditions of the problem he
had to solve." Here we have the secret of his success in grappling
with the serious and complicated questions which constantly engaged
his attention in the administration of Canadian affairs.
After leaving the university with honour, he passed several years on
the family estate, which he endeavoured to relieve as far as possible
from the financial embarrassment into which it had fallen ever since
his father's extravagant purchase in Greece. In 1840, by the death of
his eldest brother, George, who died unmarried, James became heir to
the earldom, and soon afterwards entered parliament as member for the
borough of Southampton. He claimed then, as always, to be a Liberal
Conservative, because he believed that "the institutions of our
country, religious as well as civil, are wisely adapted, when duly and
faithfully administered, to promote, not the interest of any class or
classes exclusively, but the happiness and welfare of the great body
of the people"; and because he felt that, "on the maintenance of these
institutions, not only the economical prosperity of England, but, what
is yet more important, the virtues that distinguish and adorn the
English character, under God, mainly depend."
During the two years Lord Elgin remained in the House of Commons he
gave evidence to satisfy his friends that he possessed to an eminent
degree the qualities which promised him a brilliant career in British
politics. Happily for the administration of the affairs of Britain's
colonial empire, he was induced by Lord Stanley, then secretary of
state for the colonies, to surrender his prospects in parliament and
accept the governorship of Jamaica. No doubt he was largely influenced
to take this position by the conviction that he would be able to
relieve his father's property from the pressure necessarily entailed
upon it while he remained in the expensive field of national politics.
On his way to Jamaica he was shipwrecked, and his wife, a daughter of
Mr. Charles Cumming Bruce, M.P., of Dunphail, Stirling, suffered a
shock which so seriously impaired her health that she died a few
months after her arrival in the island when she had given birth to a
daughter.[3] His administration of the government of Jamaica was
distinguished by a strong desire to act discreetly and justly at a
time when the economic conditions of the island were still seriously
disturbed by the emancipation of the negroes. Planter and black alike
found in him a true friend and sympathizer. He recognized the
necessity of improving the methods of agriculture, and did much by the
establishment of agricultural societies to spread knowledge among the
ignorant blacks, as well as to create a spirit of emulation among the
landlords, who were still sullen and apathetic, requiring much
persuasion to adapt themselves to the new order of things, and make
efforts to stimulate skilled labour among the coloured population whom
they still despised. Then, as always in his career, he was animated by
the noble impulse to administer public affairs with a sole regard to
the public interests, irrespective of class or creed, to elevate men
to a higher conception of their public duties. "To reconcile the
planter"--I quote from one of his letters to Lord Stanley--"to the
heavy burdens which he was called to bear for the improvement of our
establishments and the benefit of the mass of the population, it was
necessary to persuade him that he had an interest in raising the
standard of education and morals among the peasantry; and this belief
could be imparted only by inspiring a taste for a more artificial
system of husbandry." "By the silent operation of such salutary
convictions," he added, "prejudices of old standing are removed; the
friends of the negro and of the proprietary classes find themselves
almost unconsciously acting in concert, and conspiring to complete
that great and holy work of which the emancipation of the slave was
but the commencement."
At this time the relations between the island and the home governments
were always in a very strained condition on account of the difficulty
of making the colonial office fully sensible of the financial
embarrassment caused by the upheaval of the labour and social systems,
and of the wisest methods of assisting the colony in its straits. As
it too often happened in those old times of colonial rule, the home
government could with difficulty be brought to understand that the
economic principles which might satisfy the state of affairs in Great
Britain could not be hastily and arbitrarily applied to a country
suffering under peculiar difficulties. The same unintelligent spirit
which forced taxation on the thirteen colonies, which complicated
difficulties in the Canadas before the rebellion of 1837, seemed for
the moment likely to prevail, as soon as the legislature of Jamaica
passed a tariff framed naturally with regard to conditions existing
when the receipts and expenditures could not be equalized, and the
financial situation could not be relieved from its extreme tension in
any other way than by the imposition of duties which happened to be in
antagonism with the principles then favoured by the imperial
government. At this critical juncture Lord Elgin successfully
interposed between the colonial office and the island legislature, and
obtained permission for the latter to manage this affair in its own
way. He recognized the fact, obvious enough to any one conversant with
the affairs of the island, that the tariff in question was absolutely
necessary to relieve it from financial ruin, and that any strenuous
interference with the right of the assembly to control its own taxes
and expenses would only tend to create complications in the government
and the relations with the parent state. He was convinced, as he wrote
to the colonial office, that an indispensable condition of his
usefulness as a governor was "a just appreciation of the difficulties
with which the legislature of the island had yet to contend, and of
the sacrifices and exertions already made under the pressure of no
ordinary embarrassments."
Here we see Lord Elgin, at the very commencement of his career as a
colonial governor, fully alive to the economic, social, and political
conditions of the country, and anxious to give its people every
legitimate opportunity to carry out those measures which they
believed, with a full knowledge and experience of their own affairs,
were best calculated to promote their own interests. We shall see
later that it was in exactly the same spirit that he administered
Canadian questions of much more serious import.
Though his government in Jamaica was in every sense a success, he
decided not to remain any longer than three years, and so wrote in
1845 to Lord Stanley. Despite his earnest efforts to identify himself
with the island's interests, he had led on the whole a retired and sad
life after the death of his wife. He naturally felt a desire to seek
the congenial and sympathetic society of friends across the sea, and
perhaps return to the active public life for which he was in so many
respects well qualified. In offering his resignation to the colonial
secretary he was able to say that the period of his administration had
been "one of considerable social progress"; that "uninterrupted
harmony" had "prevailed between the colonists and the local
government"; that "the spirit of enterprise" which had proceeded from
Jamaica for two years had "enabled the British West Indian colonies to
endure with comparative fortitude, apprehensions and difficulties
which otherwise might have depressed them beyond measure."
It was not, however, until the spring of 1846 that Lord Elgin was able
to return on leave of absence to England, where the seals of office
were now held by a Liberal administration, in which Lord Grey was
colonial secretary. Although his political opinions differed from
those of the party in power, he was offered the governor-generalship
of Canada when he declined to go back to Jamaica. No doubt at this
juncture the British ministry recognized the absolute necessity that
existed for removing all political grievances that arose from the
tardy concession of responsible government since the death of Lord
Sydenham, and for allaying as far as possible the discontent that
generally prevailed against the new fiscal policy of the parent state,
which had so seriously paralyzed Canadian industries. It was a happy
day for Canada when Lord Elgin accepted this gracious offer of his
political opponents, who undoubtedly recognized in him the possession
of qualities which would enable him successfully, in all probability,
to grapple with the perplexing problems which embarrassed public
affairs in the province. He felt (to quote his own language at a
public dinner given to him just before his departure for Canada) that
he undertook no slight responsibilities when he promised "to watch
over the interests of those great offshoots of the British race which
plant themselves in distant lands, to aid them in their efforts to
extend the domain of civilization, and to fulfill the first behest of
a benevolent Creator to His intelligent creatures--'subdue the earth';
to abet the generous endeavour to impart to these rising communities
the full advantages of British laws, British institutions, and British
freedom; to assist them in maintaining unimpaired--it may be in
strengthening and confirming--those bonds of mutual affection which
unite the parent and dependent states."
Before his departure for the scene of his labours in America, he
married Lady Mary Louisa Lambton, daughter of the Earl of Durham,
whose short career in Canada as governor-general and high commissioner
after the rebellion of 1837 had such a remarkable influence on the
political conditions of the country. Whilst we cannot attach too much
importance to the sage advice embodied in that great state paper on
Canadian affairs which was the result of his mission to Canada, we
cannot fail at the same time to see that the full vindication of the
sound principles laid down in that admirable report is to be found in
the complete success of their application by Lord Elgin. The minds of
both these statesmen ran in the same direction. They desired to give
adequate play to the legitimate aspirations of the Canadian people for
that measure of self-government which must stimulate an independence
of thought and action among colonial public men, and at the same time
strengthen the ties between the parent state and the dependency by
creating that harmony and confidence which otherwise could not exist
in the relations between them. But while there is little doubt that
Lord Elgin would under any circumstances have been animated by a deep
desire to establish the principles of responsible government in
Canada, this desire must have been more or less stimulated by the
tender ties which bound him to the daughter of a statesman whose
opinions where so entirely in harmony with his own. In Lord Elgin's
temperament there was always a mingling of sentiment and reason, as
may be seen by reference to his finest exhibitions of eloquence. We
can well believe that a deep reverence for the memory of a great man,
too soon removed from the public life of Great Britain, combined with
the natural desire to please his daughter when he wrote these words to
her:--
"I still adhere to my opinion that the real and effectual
vindication of Lord Durham's memory and proceedings will be
the success of a governor-general of Canada who works out
his views of government fairly. Depend upon it, if this
country is governed for a few years satisfactorily, Lord
Durham's reputation as a statesman will be raised beyond the
reach of cavil."
Now, more than half a century after he penned these words and
expressed this hope, we all perceive that Lord Elgin was the
instrument to carry out this work.
Here it is necessary to close this very brief sketch of Lord Elgin's
early career, that I may give an account of the political and economic
conditions of the dependency at the end of January, 1847, when he
arrived in the city of Montreal to assume the responsibilities of his
office. This review will show the difficulties of the political
situation with which he was called upon to cope, and will enable us to
obtain an insight into the high qualifications which he brought to the
conduct of public affairs in the Canadas.