CANADIAN POLITICS FROM 1853 to 1860.
In May, 1853, I sold out my interest in the _Patriot_ to Mr. Ogle R.
Gowan, and having a little capital of my own, invested it in the
purchase of the _Colonist_ from the widow of the late Hugh Scobie, who
died December 6th, 1852. It was a heavy undertaking, but I was sanguine
and energetic, and--as one of my friends told me--thorough. The
_Colonist_, as an organ of the old Scottish Kirk party in Canada, had
suffered from the rivalry of its Free Kirk competitor, the _Globe_; and
its remaining subscribers, being, as a rule, strongly Conservative, made
no objection to the change of proprietorship; while I carried over with
me, by agreement, the subscribers to the daily _Patriot_, thus combining
the mercantile strength of the two journals.
I had hitherto confined myself to the printing department, leaving the
duties of editorship to others. On taking charge of the _Colonist_, I
assumed the whole political responsibility, with Mr. John Sheridan Hogan
as assistant editor and Quebec correspondent. My partners were the late
Hugh C. Thomson, afterwards secretary to the Board of Agriculture, who
acted as local editor; and James Bain, now of the firm of Jas. Bain &
Son, to whom the book-selling and stationery departments were committed.
We had a strong staff of reporters, and commenced the new enterprise
under promising circumstances. Our office and store were in the old
brick building extending from King to Colborne Street, long previously
known as the grocery store of Jas. F. Smith.
The ministry then in power was that known as the Hincks-Tache
Government. Francis Hincks had parted with his old radical allies, and
become more conservative than many of the Tories whom he used to
denounce. People remembered Wm. Lyon Mackenzie's prophecy, who said he
feared that Francis Hincks could not be trusted to resist temptation.
When Lord Elgin went to England, it was whispered that his lordship had
paid off L80,000 sterling of mortgages on his Scottish estates, out of
the proceeds of speculations which he had shared with his clever
minister. The St. Lawrence and Atlantic purchase, the L50,000 Grand
Trunk stock placed to Mr. Hincks' credit--as he asserted without his
consent--and the Bowes transaction, gave colour to the many stories
circulated to his prejudice. And when he went to England, and received
the governorship of Barbadoes, many people believed that it was the
price of his private services to the Earl of Elgin.
Whatever the exact truth in these cases may have been, I am convinced
that from the seed then sown, sprang up a crop of corrupt influences
that have since permeated all the avenues to power, and borne their
natural fruit in the universal distrust of public men, and the
wide-spread greed of public money, which now prevail. Neither political
party escapes the imputation of bribing the constituencies, both
personally at elections, and by parliamentary grants for local
improvements. The wholesale expenditure at old country elections, which
transferred so much money from the pockets of the rich to those of the
poor, without any prospect of pecuniary return, has with us taken the
form of a speculative investment to be "re-couped" by value in the shape
of substantial government favours.
Could I venture to enter the lists against so tremendous a rhetorical
athlete as Professor Goldwin Smith, I should say, that his idea of
abolishing party government to secure purity of election is an utter
fallacy; I should say that the great factor of corruption in Canada has
been the adoption of the principle of coalitions. I told a prominent
Conservative leader in 1853, that I looked upon coalitions as
essentially immoral, and that the duty of either political party was to
remain contentedly "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition," and to support
frankly all good measures emanating from the party in office, until the
voice of the country, fairly expressed, should call the Opposition to
assume the reins of power legitimately. I told the late Hon. Mr. Spence,
when he joined the coalition ministry of 1854, that we (of the
_Colonist_) looked upon that combination as an organized attempt to
govern the country through its vices; and that nothing but the violence
of the _Globe_ party could induce us to support any coalition
whatsoever. And I think still that I was right, and that the Minister
who buys politicians to desert their principles, resembles nothing so
much as the lawyer who gains a verdict in favour of his client by
bribing the jury.
The union of Upper and Lower Canada is chargeable, no doubt, with a
large share of the evils that have crept into our constitutional system.
The French Canadian _habitans_, at the time of the Union, were true
scions of the old peasantry of Normandy and Brittany, with which their
songs identify them so strikingly. All their ideas of government were
ultra-monarchical; their allegiance to the old French Kings had been
transferred to the Romish hierarchy and clergy, who, it must be said,
looked after their flocks with undying zeal and beneficent care. But
this formed an ill preparation for representative institutions. The
_Rouge_ party, at first limited to lawyers and notaries chiefly, had
taken up the principles of the first French revolution, and for some
years made but little progress; in time, however, they learnt the
necessity of cultivating the assistance, or at least the neutrality of
the clergy, and in this they were aided by ties of relationship. As in
Ireland, where almost every poor family emaciates itself to provide for
the education of one of its sons as a "counsellor" or a priest, so in
Lower Canada, most families contain within themselves both priest and
lawyer. Thus it came to pass, that in the Lower Province, a large
proportion of the people lived in the hope that they might sooner or
later share in "government pap," and looked upon any means to that end
as unquestionably lawful. It is not difficult to perceive how much and
how readily this idea would communicate itself to their Upper Canadian
allies after the Union; that it did so, is matter of history.
In fact, the combination of French and British representatives in a
single cabinet, itself constitutes a coalition of the most objectionable
kind; as the result can only be a perpetual system of compromises. For
example, one of the effects of the Union, and of the coalition of 1854,
was the passage of the bill secularizing the Clergy Reserves, and
abolishing all connection between church and state in Upper Canada,
while leaving untouched the privileges of the Romish Church in the Lower
Province. That some day, there will arise a formidable Nemesis spawned
of this one-sided act, when the agitation for disendowment shall have
reached the Province of Quebec, who can doubt?
In 1855 and subsequently, followed a series of struggles for office,
without any great political object in view, each party or clique
striving to bid higher than all the rest for popular votes, which went
on amid alternate successes and reverses, until the denouement came in
1859, when neither political party could form a Ministry that should
command a majority in parliament, and they were fain to coalesce _en
masse_ in favour of confederation. At one time, Mr. George Brown was
defeated by Wm. Lyon Mackenzie in Halton; at another, he voted with the
Tories against the Hincks ministry; again, he was a party to a proposed
coalition with Sir Allan MacNab. I was myself present at Sir Allan's
house in Richey's Terrace, Adelaide Street, where I was astonished to
meet Mr. Brown himself in confidential discussion with Sir Allan. I
recollect a member of the Lower House--I think Mr. Hillyard
Cameron--hurrying in with the information that at a meeting of
Conservative members which he had just left, they had chosen Mr. John A.
Macdonald as their leader in place of Sir Allan, which report broke up
the conference, and defeated the plans of the coalitionists. This was, I
think, in 1855. Then came on the "Rep. by Pop." agitation led by the
_Globe_, in 1856.[25] In 1857, the great business panic superseded all
other questions. In 1858, the turn of the Reform party came, with Mr.
Brown again at their head, who held power for precisely four days.
In 1858, also, the question of protection for native industry, which had
been advocated by the British-American League, was taken up in
parliament by the Hon. Wm. Cayley and Hon. Isaac Buchanan separately. In
1859, came Mr. Brown's and Mr. Galt's federal union resolutions, and Mr.
Cayley's motion for protection once more.
All these years--from 1853 to 1860--I was in confidential communication
with the leaders of the Conservative party, and after 1857 with the
Upper Canadian members of the administration personally; and I am bound
to bear testimony to their entire patriotism and general
disinterestedness whenever the public weal was involved. I was never
asked to print a line which I could not conscientiously endorse; and had
I been so requested, I should assuredly have refused.
[Footnote 25: The same year occurred the elections for members of the
Legislative Council. I was a member of Mr. G. W. Allan's committee, and
saw many things there which disgusted me with all election tactics. Men
received considerable sums of money for expenses, which it was believed
never left their own pockets. Mr. Allan was in England, and sent
positive instructions against any kind of bribery whatsoever, yet when
he arrived here, claims were lodged against him amounting to several
thousand dollars, which he was too high-minded to repudiate.]