THE END OF THE LAFONTAINE-BALDWIN MINISTRY, 1851
The LaFontaine-Baldwin government remained in office until October,
1851, when it was constitutionally dissolved by the retirement of the
prime minister soon after the resignation of his colleague from Upper
Canada, whose ability as a statesman and integrity as a man had given
such popularity to the cabinet throughout the country. It has been
well described by historians as "The Great Ministry." During its
existence Canada obtained a full measure of self-government in all
provincial affairs. Trade was left perfectly untrammeled by the repeal
in June, 1849, of the navigation laws, in accordance with the urgent
appeals of the governor-general to the colonial secretary. The
immediate results were a stimulus to the whole commerce of the
province, and an influx of shipping to the ports of the St. Lawrence.
The full control of the post-office was handed over to the Canadian
government. This was one of the most popular concessions made to the
Canadian people, since it gave them opportunities for cheaper
circulation of letters and newspapers, so necessary in a new and
sparsely settled country, where the people were separated from each
other in many districts by long distances. One of the grievances of
the Canadians before the union had been the high postage imposed on
letters throughout British North America. The poor settlers were not
able to pay the three or four shillings, and even more, demanded for
letters mailed from their old homes across the sea, and it was not
unusual to find in country post-offices a large accumulation of dead
letters, refused on account of the expense. The management of the
postal service by imperial officers was in every way most
unsatisfactory; it was chiefly carried on for the benefit of a few
persons, and not for the convenience or consolation of the many who
were always anxious for news of their kin in the "old country." After
the union there was a little improvement in the system, but it was not
really administered in the interests of the Canadian people until it
was finally transferred to the colonial authorities. When this
desirable change took place, an impulse was soon given to the
dissemination of letters and newspapers. The government organized a
post-office department, of which the head was a postmaster-general
with a seat in the cabinet.
Other important measures made provision for the introduction of the
decimal system into the provincial currency, the taking of a census
every ten years, the more satisfactory conduct of parliamentary
elections and the prevention of corruption, better facilities for the
administration of justice in the two provinces, the abolition of
primogeniture with respect to real estate in Upper Canada, and the
more equitable division of property among the children of an
intestate, based on the civil law of French Canada and old France.
Education also continued to show marked improvement in accordance with
the wise policy adopted since 1841. Previous to the union popular
education had been at a very low ebb, although there were a number of
efficient private schools in all the provinces where the children of
the well-to-do classes could be taught classics and many branches of
knowledge. In Lower Canada not one-tenth of the children of the
_habitants_ could write, and only one-fifth could read. In Upper
Canada the schoolmasters as a rule, according to Mrs. Anna
Jameson,[11] were "ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-paid, or not paid at
all." In the generality of cases they were either Scotsmen or
Americans, totally unfit for the positions they filled. As late as
1833 Americans or anti-British adventurers taught in the greater
proportion of the schools, where the pupils used United States
text-books replete with sentiments hostile to England--a wretched
state of things stopped by legislation only in 1846. Year by year
after the union improvements were made in the school system, with the
object of giving every possible educational facility to rich and poor
alike.
In the course of time elementary education became practically free.
The success of the system in the progressive province of Upper Canada
largely rested on the public spirit of the municipalities. It was
engrafted on the municipal institutions of each county, to which
provincial aid was given in proportion to the amount raised by local
assessment. The establishment of normal schools and public libraries
was one of the useful features of school legislation in those days.
The merits of the system naturally evoked the sympathy and praise of
the governor-general, who was deeply interested in the intellectual
progress of the country. The development of "individual self-reliance
and local exertion under the superintendence of a central authority
exercising an influence almost exclusively moral is the ruling
principle of the system."
Provision was also made for the imparting of religious instruction by
clergymen of the several religious denominations recognized by law,
and for the establishment of separate schools for Protestants or Roman
Catholics whenever there was a necessity for them in any local
division. On the question of religious instruction Lord Elgin always
entertained strong opinions. After expressing on one occasion his deep
gratification at the adoption of legislation which had "enabled Upper
Canada to place itself in the van among the nations in the important
work of providing an efficient system of education for the whole
community," he proceeded to commend the fact that "its foundation was
laid deep in the framework of our common Christianity." He showed then
how strong was the influence of the moral sense in his character:
"While the varying opinions of a mixed religious society are
scrupulously respected.... it is confidently expected that
every child who attends our common schools shall learn there
that he is a being who has an interest in eternity as well
as in time; that he has a Father towards whom he stands in a
closer and more affecting and more endearing relationship
than to any earthly father, and that that Father is in
heaven."
But since the expression of these emphatic opinions the tendency of
legislation in the majority of the provinces--but not in French
Canada, where the Roman Catholic clergy still largely control their
own schools--has been to encourage secular and not religious
education. It would be instructive to learn whether either morality or
Christianity has been the gainer.
It is only justice to the memory of a man who died many years after he
saw the full fruition of his labours to say that Upper Canada owes a
debt of gratitude to the Rev. Egerton Ryerson for his services in
connection with its public school system. He was far from being a man
of deep knowledge or having a capacity for expressing his views with
terseness or clearness. He had also a large fund of personal vanity
which made him sometimes a busybody when inaction or silence would
have been wiser for himself. We can only explain his conduct in
relation to the constitutional controversy between Lord Metcalfe and
the Liberal party by the supposition that he could not resist the
blandishments of that eminent nobleman, when consulted by him, but
allowed his reason to be captured and then gave expression to opinions
and arguments which showed that he had entirely misunderstood the
seriousness of the political crisis or the sound practice of the
parliamentary system which Baldwin, LaFontaine and Howe had so long
laboured to establish in British North America. The books he wrote can
never be read with profit or interest. His "History of the United
Empire Loyalists" is probably the dullest book ever compiled by a
Canadian, and makes us thankful that he was never able to carry out
the intention he expressed in a letter to Sir Francis Hincks of
writing a constitutional history of Canada. But though he made no
figure in Canadian letters, and was not always correct in his estimate
of political issues, he succeeded in making for himself a reputation
for public usefulness in connection with the educational system of
Upper Canada far beyond that of the majority of his Canadian
contemporaries.
The desire of the imperial and Canadian governments to bury in
oblivion the unhappy events of 1837 and 1838 was very emphatically
impressed by the concession of an amnesty in 1849 to all the persons
who had been engaged in the rebellions. In the time of Lord Metcalfe,
Papineau, Nelson, and other rebels long in exile, had been allowed to
return to Canada either by virtue of special pardons granted by the
Crown under the great seal, or by the issue of writs of _nolle
prosequi._ The signal result of the Amnesty Act passed in 1849 by the
Canadian legislature, in accordance with the recommendation in the
speech from the throne, was the return of William Lyon Mackenzie, who
had led an obscure and wretched life in the United States ever since
his flight from Upper Canada in 1837, and had gained an experience
which enabled him to value British institutions more highly than those
of the republic.
An impartial historian must always acknowledge the fact that Mackenzie
was ill-used by the family compact and English governors during his
political career before the rebellion, and that he had sound views of
constitutional government which were well worthy of the serious
consideration of English statesmen. In this respect he showed more
intelligence than Papineau, who never understood the true principles
of parliamentary government, and whose superiority, compared with the
little, pugnacious Upper Canadian, was the possession of a stately
presence and a gift of fervid eloquence which was well adapted to
impress and carry away his impulsive and too easily deceived
countrymen. If Mackenzie had shown more control of his temper and
confined himself to such legitimate constitutional agitation as was
stirred up by a far abler man, Joseph Howe, the father of responsible
government in the maritime provinces, he would have won a far higher
place in Canadian history. He was never a statesman; only an agitator
who failed entirely throughout his passionate career to understand the
temper of the great body of Liberals--that they were in favour not of
rebellion but of such a continuous and earnest enunciation of their
constitutional principles as would win the whole province to their
opinions and force the imperial government itself to make the reforms
imperatively demanded in the public interests.[12] But, while we
cannot recognize in him the qualities of a safe political leader, we
should do justice to that honesty of purpose and that spirit of
unselfishness which placed him on a far higher plane than many of
those men who belonged to the combination derisively called the
"family compact," and who never showed a willingness to consider other
interests than their own. Like Papineau, Mackenzie became a member of
the provincial legislature, but only to give additional evidence that
he did not possess the capacity for discreet, practical statesmanship
possessed by Hincks and Baldwin and other able Upper Canadians who
could in those days devote themselves to the public interests with
such satisfactory results to the province at large.
It was Baldwin who, while a member of the ministry, succeeded in
carrying the measure which created the University of Toronto, and
placed it on the broad basis on which it has rested ever since. His
measure was the result of an agitation which had commenced before the
union. Largely through the influence of Dr. Strachan, the first
Anglican bishop of Upper Canada, Sir Peregrine Maitland, when
lieutenant-governor, had been induced to grant a charter establishing
King's College "at or near York" (Toronto), with university
privileges. Like old King's in Nova Scotia, established before the
beginning of the century, it was directly under the control of the
Church of England, since its governing body and its professors had to
subscribe to its thirty-nine articles. It received an endowment of the
public lands available for educational purposes in the province, and
every effort was made to give it a provincial character though
conducted entirely on sectarian principles. The agitation which
eventually followed its establishment led to some modifications in its
character, but, for all that, it remained practically under the
direction of the Anglican bishop and clergy, and did not obtain the
support or approval of any dissenters. After the union a large edifice
was commenced in the city of Toronto, on the site where the
legislative and government buildings now stand, and an energetic
movement was made to equip it fully as a university.
When the Draper-Viger ministry was in office, it was proposed to meet
the growing opposition to the institution by establishing a university
which should embrace three denominational colleges--King's College,
Toronto, for the Church of England, Queen's College, Kingston, for the
Presbyterians, and Victoria College, Cobourg, for the Methodists--but
the bishop and adherents of the Anglican body strenuously opposed the
measure, which failed to pass in a House where the Tories were in the
ascendant. Baldwin had himself previously introduced a bill of a
similar character as a compromise, but it had failed to meet with any
support, and when he came into office he saw that he must go much
further and establish a non-sectarian university if he expected to
carry any measure on the subject in the legislature. The result was
the establishment of the University of Toronto, on a strictly
undenominational foundation. Bishop Strachan was deeply incensed at
what he regarded as a violation of vested rights of the Church of
England in the University of King's College, and never failed for
years to style the provincial institution "the Godless university." In
this as in other matters he failed to see that the dominant sentiment
of the country would not sustain any attempt on the part of a single
denomination to control a college which obtained its chief support
from public aid. Whilst every tribute must be paid to the zeal,
energy, and courage of the bishop, we must at the same time recognize
the fact that his former connection with the family compact and his
inability to understand the necessity of compromise in educational and
other matters did much injury to a great church.
He succeeded unfortunately in identifying it with the unpopular and
aristocratic party, opposed to the extension of popular government and
the diffusion of cheap education among all classes of people. With
that indomitable courage which never failed him at a crisis he set to
work to advance the denomination whose interests he had always at
heart, and succeeded by appeals to English aid in establishing Trinity
College, which has always occupied a high position among Canadian
universities, although for a while it failed to arouse sympathy in the
public mind, until the feelings which had been evoked in connection
with the establishment of King's had passed away. An effort is now
(1901) being made to affiliate it with the same university which the
bishop had so obstinately and bitterly opposed, in the hope of giving
it larger opportunities for usefulness. Its complete success of late
has been impeded by the want of adequate funds to maintain those
departments of scientific instruction now imperatively demanded in
modern education. When this affiliation takes place, the friends of
Trinity, conversant with its history from its beginning, believe that
the portrait of the old bishop, now hanging on the walls of
Convocation Hall, should be covered with a dark veil, emblematic of
the sorrow which he would feel were he to return to earth and see what
to him would be the desecration of an institution which he built as a
great remonstrance against the spoliation of the church in 1849.
The LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry also proved itself fully equal to the
demands of public opinion by its vigorous policy with respect to the
colonization of the wild lands of the province, the improvement of the
navigation of the St. Lawrence, and the construction of railways.
Measures were passed which had the effect of opening up and settling
large districts by the offer of grants of public land at a nominal
price and very easy terms of payment. In this way the government
succeeded in keeping in the country a large number of French Canadians
who otherwise would have gone to the United States, where the varied
industries of a very enterprising people have always attracted a large
number of Canadians of all classes and races.
The canals were at last completed in accordance with the wise policy
inaugurated after the union by Lord Sydenham, whose commercial
instincts at once recognized the necessity of giving western trade
easy access to the ocean by the improvement of the great waterways of
Canada. It had always been the ambition of the people of Upper Canada
before the union to obtain a continuous and secure system of
navigation from the lakes to Montreal. The Welland Canal between Lakes
Erie and Ontario was commenced as early as 1824 through the enterprise
of Mr. William Hamilton Merritt--afterwards a member of the
LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry--and the first vessel passed its locks in
1829; but it was very badly managed, and the legislature, after having
aided it from time to time, was eventually obliged to take control of
it as a provincial work. The Cornwall Canal was also undertaken at an
early day, but work had to be stopped when it became certain that the
legislature of Lower Canada, then controlled by Papineau, would not
respond to the aspirations of the west and improve that portion of the
St. Lawrence within its provincial jurisdiction.
Governor Haldimand had, from 1779-1782, constructed a very simple
temporary system of canals to overcome the rapids called the Cascades,
Cedars and Côteau, and some slight improvements were made in these
primitive works from year to year until the completion of the
Beauharnois Canal in 1845. The Lachine Canal was completed, after a
fashion, in 1828, but nothing was done to give a continuous river
navigation between Montreal and the west until 1845, when the
Beauharnois Canal was first opened. The Rideau Canal originated in the
experiences of the war of 1812-14, which showed the necessity of a
secure inland communication between Montreal and the country on Lake
Ontario; but though first constructed for defensive purposes, it had
for years decided commercial advantages for the people of Upper
Canada, especially of the Kingston district. The Grenville canal on
the Ottawa was the natural continuation of this canal, as it ensured
uninterrupted water communication between Bytown--now the city of
Ottawa--and Montreal.
The heavy public debt contracted by Upper Canada prior to 1840 had
been largely accumulated by the efforts of its people to obtain the
active sympathy and cooperation of the legislature of French Canada,
where Papineau and his followers seemed averse to the development of
British interests in the valley of the St. Lawrence. After the union,
happily for Canada, public men of all parties and races awoke to the
necessity of a vigorous canal policy, and large sums of money were
annually expended to give the shipping of the lakes safe and
continuous navigation to Montreal. At the same time the channel of
Lake St. Peter between Montreal and Quebec was improved by the harbour
commissioners of the former city, aided by the government. Before the
LaFontaine-Baldwin cabinet left office, it was able to see the
complete success of this thoroughly Canadian or national policy. The
improvement of this canal system--now the most magnificent in the
world--has kept pace with the development of the country down to the
present time.
It was mainly, if not entirely, through the influence of Hincks,
finance minister in the government, that a vigorous impulse was given
to railway construction in the province. The first railroad in British
North America was built in 1837 by the enterprise of Montreal
capitalists, from La Prairie on the south side of the St. Lawrence as
far as St. John's on the Richelieu, a distance of only sixteen miles.
The only railroad in Upper Canada for many years was a horse tramway,
opened in 1839 between Queenston and Chippewa by the old portage road
round the falls of Niagara. In 1845 the St. Lawrence and Atlantic
Railway Company--afterwards a portion of the Grand Trunk
Railway--obtained a charter for a line to connect with the Atlantic
and St. Lawrence Railway Company of Portland, in the State of Maine.
The year 1846 saw the commencement of the Lachine Railway. In 1849 the
Great Western, the Northern, and the St. Lawrence and Atlantic
Railways were stimulated by legislation which gave a provincial
guarantee for the construction of lines not less than seventy-five
miles in length. In 1851 Hincks succeeded in passing a measure which
provided for the building of a great trunk line connecting Quebec with
the western limits of Upper Canada. It was hoped at first that this
road would join the great military railway contemplated between Quebec
and Halifax, and then earnestly advocated by Howe and other public men
of the maritime provinces with the prospect of receiving aid from the
imperial government. If these railway interests could be combined, an
Intercolonial railroad would be constructed from the Atlantic seaboard
to the lakes, and a great stimulus given not merely to the commerce
but to the national unity of British North America, In case, however,
this great idea could not be realized, it was the intention of the
Canadian government to make every possible exertion to induce British
capitalists to invest their money in the great trunk line by a liberal
offer of assistance from the provincial exchequer, and the
municipalities directly interested in its construction.
The practical result of Hincks's policy was the construction of the
Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, not by public aid as originally
proposed, but by British capitalists. The greater inter-colonial
scheme failed in consequence of the conflict of rival routes in the
maritime provinces, and the determination of the British government to
give its assistance only to a road that would be constructed at a long
distance from the United States frontier, and consequently available
for military and defensive purposes--in fact such a road as was
actually built after the confederation of the provinces with the aid
of an imperial guarantee. The history of the negotiations between the
Canadian government and the maritime provinces with respect to the
Intercolonial scheme is exceedingly complicated. An angry controversy
arose between Hincks and Howe; the latter always accused the former of
a breach of faith, and of having been influenced by a desire to
promote the interests of the capitalists concerned in the Grand Trunk
without reference to those of the maritime provinces. Be that as it
may, we know that Hincks left the wordy politicians of Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick to quarrel over rival routes, and, as we shall see
later, went ahead with the Grand Trunk, and had it successfully
completed many years before the first sod on the Intercolonial route
was turned.
In addition to these claims of the LaFontaine-Baldwin government to be
considered "a great ministry," there is the fact that, through the
financial ability of Hincks, the credit of the province steadily
advanced, and it was at last possible to borrow money in the London
market on very favourable terms. The government entered heartily into
the policy of Lord Elgin with respect to reciprocity with the United
States, and the encouragement of trade between the different provinces
of British North America. It was, however, unable to dispose of two
great questions which had long agitated the province--the abolition of
the seigniorial tenure, which was antagonistic to settlement and
colonization, and the secularization of the clergy reserves, granted
to the Protestant clergy by the Constitutional Act of 1791. These
questions will be reviewed at some length in later chapters, and all
that it is necessary to say here is that, while the LaFontaine-Baldwin
cabinet supported preliminary steps that were taken in the legislature
for the purpose of bringing about a settlement of these vexatious
subjects, it never showed any earnest desire to take them up as parts
of its ministerial policy, and remove them from political controversy.
Indeed it is clear that LaFontaine's conservative instincts, which
became stronger with age and experience of political conditions,
forced him to proceed very slowly and cautiously with respect to a
movement that would interfere with a tenure so deeply engrafted in the
social and economic structure of his own province, while as a Roman
Catholic he was at heart always doubtful of the justice of diverting
to secular purposes those lands which had been granted by Great
Britain for the support of a Protestant clergy. Baldwin was also slow
to make up his mind as to the proper disposition of the reserves, and
certainly weakened himself in his own province by his reluctance to
express himself distinctly with respect to a land question which had
been so long a grievance and a subject of earnest agitation among the
men who supported him in and out of the legislature. Indeed when he
presented himself for the last time before his constituents in 1857,
he was emphatically attacked on the hustings as an opponent of the
secularization of the reserves for refusing to give a distinct pledge
as to the course he would take on the question. This fact, taken in
connection with his previous utterances in the legislature, certainly
gives force to the opinion which has been more than once expressed by
Canadian historians that he was not prepared, any more than LaFontaine
himself, to divert funds given for an express purpose to one of an
entirely different character. Under these circumstances it is easy to
come to the conclusion that the LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry was not
willing at any time to make these two questions parts of its
policy--questions on which it was ready to stand or fall as a
government.
The first step towards the breaking up of the ministry was the
resignation of Baldwin following upon the support given by a majority
of the Reformers in Upper Canada to a notion presented by William Lyon
Mackenzie for the abolition of the court of chancery and the transfer
of its functions to the courts of common law. The motion was voted
down in the House, but Baldwin was a believer in the doctrine that a
minister from a particular province should receive the confidence and
support of the majority of its representatives in cases where a
measure affected its interests exclusively. He had taken some pride in
the passage of the act which reorganized the court, reformed old
abuses in its practice, and made it, as he was convinced, useful in
litigation; but when he found that his efforts in this direction were
condemned by the votes of the very men who should have supported him
in the province affected by the measure, he promptly offered his
resignation, which was accepted with great reluctance not only by
LaFontaine but by Lord Elgin, who had learned to admire and respect
this upright, unselfish Canadian statesman. A few months later he was
defeated at an election in one of the ridings of York by an unknown
man, largely on account of his attitude on the question of the clergy
reserves. He never again offered himself for parliament, but lived in
complete retirement in Toronto, where he died in 1858. Then the people
whom he had so long faithfully served, after years of neglect, became
conscious that a true patriot had passed away.
LaFontaine placed his resignation in the hands of the
governor-general, who accepted it with regret. No doubt the former had
deeply felt the loss of his able colleague, and was alive to the
growing belief among the Liberal politicians of Upper Canada that the
government was not proceeding fast enough in carrying out the reforms
which they considered necessary. LaFontaine had become a Conservative
as is usual with men after some experience of the responsibilities of
public administration, and probably felt that he had better retire
before he lost his influence with his party, and before the elements
of disintegration that were forming within it had fully developed.
After his retirement he returned to the practice of law, and in 1853
he became chief justice of the court of appeal of Lower Canada on the
death of Sir James Stuart. At the same time he received from the Crown
the honour of a baronetcy, which was also conferred on the chief
justice of Upper Canada, Sir John Beverley Robinson.
Political historians justly place LaFontaine in the first rank of
Canadian statesmen on account of his extensive knowledge, his sound
judgment, his breadth of view, his firmness in political crises, and
above all his desire to promote the best interests of his countrymen
on those principles of compromise and conciliation which alone can
bind together the distinct nationalities and creeds of a country
peopled like Canada. As a judge he was dignified, learned and
impartial. His judicial decisions were distinguished by the same
lucidity which was conspicuous in his parliamentary addresses. He died
ten years later than the great Upper Canadian, whose honoured name
must be always associated with his own in the annals of a memorable
epoch, when the principles of responsible government were at last,
after years of perplexity and trouble, carried out in their entirety,
and when the French Canadians had come to recognize as a truth that
under no other system would it have been possible for them to obtain
that influence in the public councils to which they were fully
entitled, or to reconcile and unite the diverse interests of a great
province, divided by the Ottawa river into two sections, the one
French and Roman Catholic, and the other English and Protestant.