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THE vote which led the
Hincks-Morin government to resign in September, 1854, stood
sixty-one to forty-six, but a closer analysis of the composition of
the legislature showed that, of one hundred and thirty members, the
defeated cabinet could claim fifty-five, the Conservative opposition
forty, the Clear Grits and Rouges combined thirty-five.
While the government
had been defeated, neither of the parties which had brought about
the defeat was able to take its place. Coalition in some form was
manifestly a necessity, if the queen's government was to be carried
on. But coalition means compromise, and to some of the parties to
the struggle anything like compromise presented almost insuperable
difficulties. It might almost be said that the political situation
at this time was dominated by the temperament of two men, Macdonald
and George Brown. The latter had gradually come to be regarded as
Macdonald's great antagonist in the public life of Canada. His
figure is one of the largest in Canadian history. In Canadian
politics his influence was for a long time only second, if second,
to that of Macdonald himself. As a force in creating the public
opinion on which reforms are based, he has strong claims to be
reckoned in the first place. Like Macdonald, he was of Scottish
birth. He was twenty-six years of age when, in 1844, the same year
in which Macdonald entered parliament, he came to Canada, where soon
after with his father he founded the Globe newspaper, with which his
name will always be associated. The immense influence which George
Brown long wielded in Upper Canada was won primarily as a
journalist. Later he became a force in the legislature, though his
parliamentary career was somewhat broken and erratic, partly through
electoral defeats, partly through the difficulty he had in working
with other men.
A man of intense
convictions, a trenchant political writer, a vehement and powerful,
though rather ungraceful, speaker, a thoroughly loyal British
subject and a man devoted to the highest interests of his adopted
country, his influence and success were somewhat marred by a
domineering spirit and an uncompromising disposition which made
little allowance for the opinions, the prejudices or the foibles of
those with whom he had to deal. The real goodness of his heart and
the earnestness of his purpose scarcely atoned at times for the
bitterness of his polemics, which accentuated animosities and even
alienated friends. As the vehement opponent of privilege and the
untiring advocate of reform his record is unique in Canadian
politics. He was deficient, however, in some of the qualities
essential to a great leader of men.
The art of popular
government has ever rested in a spirit of compromise, and never was
this spirit more necessary than in the transition period of Canadian
history. But compromise was a word not found in George Brown's
vocabulary. He strained a principle to the breaking point—to a point
where enemies were embittered and friends alienated. The note of
personal antagonism and conflicting ambitions which marked the
relations of the two men was largely the outcome of character.
Brown's judgment was frequently warped by passion—while Macdonald
was usually able to subject personal feeling to policy. Brown would
have characterized Macdonald's compromising disposition as lack of
fixed principle; while Macdonald no doubt considered that Brown's
vehement and violent methods indicated lack of that common sense and
knowledge of human nature necessary to successful statesmanship.
There is a world of illumination thrown upon the history of the two
men by the fact that of Macdonald's principal opponents at various
stages of his career the majority became, sooner or later, his
colleagues or supporters; that sooner or later George Brown found
himself in opposition to most of those with whom he had at some time
cooperated. Both men were patriots of whom Canada may be proud, and
both were necessary to the country: the one to initiate and urge
forward reforms, the other to reconcile opposing forces so as to
make reforms possible in legislation. In the long political contest
between them Macdonald won. In one of his poems Sir Walter Scott
describes a conflict between a Lowland prince of trained skill and a
Highland chieftain of blind but unflinching courage, ending in the
victory of the former. In the rivalry between Macdonald and Brown
these conditions were reversed. The skilful, adroit and restrained
Highlander, with every faculty under control, proved more than a
match for the furious onset of the Lowlander, armed though the
latter usually was with a good cause and good intentions.
When the Clear Grit
party first began to look upon itself and be regarded by others as a
distinct political group, it met with George Brown's opposition. But
as the reforming energy of the Liberal administration abated,
Brown's impatience with his old friends gradually became more
pronounced, and soon he was not merely opposing the Liberal leaders
more vehemently than the Conservatives themselves, but was steadily
moving towards the leadership of the Clear Grit party. Convinced
that French and Roman Catholic influence was the cause of the
government's hesitation, he proceeded to denounce with the utmost
vehemence and in the most sweeping terms the racial ideals and the
religious system of the people of Quebec. In a country inhabited by
two races enjoying equal rights and entitled to equal freedom of
opinion, such a course would be a mistake at any time. From the
point of view of a man aspiring to political leadership in Canada,
the mistake at the moment was fatal. The full strength of the
Liberal party in both provinces was needed to form a government
which could command a majority in the House; and Brown had made it
practically impossible for any French-Canadian party to work with
him, or for French members to support him without endangering their
own seats in parliament.
Thus it was that
when, largely through his untiring energy and fixed resolution, the
question of the Clergy Reserves had been brought in Upper Canada to
the verge of settlement, others than he were called in to complete
the business. That question had long vexed Canadian politics; it had
run like a thread through every electoral struggle since Macdonald
had entered parliament and George Brown had started on his
journalistic career; and the consideration of its nature and
history, delayed so far for the sake of greater unity of treatment,
must now be briefly dealt with before proceeding to the solution
which finally removed it from the sphere of party conflict.
By a clause in the
Act of 1791 which constituted the two provinces of Upper and Lower
Canada it was provided that, in granting allotments to settlers,
other lands "equal in value to the seventh part of the lands so
granted should be set apart for the support of a 'Protestant
Clergy.'" This legislation, intended to give assurance that
religious and moral training should go hand in hand with material
development, seemed a singularly propitious start for a new country,
but it proved in the end the most fruitful source of political
strife that the colony had ever known. The Reserves were claimed at
first for the exclusive use of the Anglican Church, and for a time
this claim was not questioned. But the Church of Scotland began, in
1822, to assert its right to a proportion of the endowment, on the
ground that it was recognized in the Act of Union between England
and Scotland as an Established Protestant Church. Other
denominations claimed at a later period that they too should have a
share, arguing that the intention of the Act was only to exclude the
clergy of the Roman Catholic Church from the benefit of the
endowment. The acrimony of the dispute was increased by the fact
that these reserved lands, scattered through every township, and
remaining for the most part uncleared, untilled and untaxed, had
grown to be one of the greatest drawbacks to the progress of
settlement and the general improvement of the country.
No doubt the clauses
of the Constitutional Act creating the Clergy Reserves had been
framed and enacted with the most praiseworthy motives. The desire to
make religious training a part of education has been a compelling
influence amongst almost all Christian bodies in the later as well
as the earlier history of Canada. The strenuous and self-sacrificing
efforts made by Roman Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians
and other Christian organizations to establish institutions where
religious training is duly recognized furnish convincing evidence
that the purpose of the framers of this Act has its counterpart in
many bodies outside the Anglican Church. Nor was the early
interpretation put upon it without plausible justification. To men
accustomed to the overshadowing influence of the Established Church
in England, as were the framers of the Act, it must have seemed a
perfectly natural thing to associate the religious training which
they wished to secure with the teaching of that Church alone, and to
aim at the organization of a parochial system such as that which
existed in the motherland. But they had overlooked the new
conditions which were sure to arise in a new country. Although the
majority of the earlier English settlers and practically the whole
body of officials belonged to the Anglican communion, at no time was
there any formal recognition in Upper Canada of an Established
Church.
The subsequent flow
of immigration tended to diminish rapidly the proportion to the
whole population of the Anglican body. The Irish famine added
greatly to the Roman Catholic population of Canada. The large
majority of Scottish immigrants were Presbyterian. The greater
number of those who came from the United States belonged to
non-Episcopal denominations. In many ways the enthusiasm and popular
methods of other religious bodies appeal more strongly to a rural
population than the severe and dignified ritual of the Church of
England. These and other causes tended to a large increase in the
proportion of the population which was out of sympathy with the
Anglican communion and unwilling that it should hold a privileged
position among other religious bodies. Such a position the Act
creating the Clergy Reserves, coupled with the interpretation put
upon it, certainly gave to the Anglican Church. Hence, the bitter
struggle which followed was prolonged through almost an entire
generation. This contest formed part of the broader struggle for
responsible government. It was the source of angry conflict in the
legislature for many years before the union and for many years
afterwards, it perplexed the policy of successive administrations
and furnished the chief subject of contention in several general
elections.
As early as 1817 the
attention of the legislature was drawn to the abuse which was being
created by the operation of the Act. It was in 1819 that the law
officers of the Crown gave their opinion in favour of the
Presbyterian claims. The agitation increased from that time forward,
the Church of England, under the leadership of the exceedingly able
but uncompromising Dr. Strachan, afterwards first Bishop of Toronto,
stoutly resisting all attempts to infringe what were considered its
legal and exclusive rights. Fuel was added to the fire of discussion
in 1836, when Sir John Colborne, just as he was resigning his post
as lieutenant-governor, acting on the recommendation of the
executive council, created and endowed forty-four rectories, giving
to them, as an endowment, lands which in the aggregate amounted to
more than seventeen thousand acres. A storm of protest followed, and
helped to swell the complaints which formed the pretext for the
uprising of 1837. When the rebellion had been put down and Mr.
Poulett Thomson (Lord Sydenham) was sent to Canada in October, 1839,
to prepare the country for the union soon to follow, the settlement
of the question seemed to him so essential to future harmony that,
by extraordinary exertions and the exercise of infinite tact, he
secured the passage by the assembly, in January, 1840, of an Act
providing that the Reserves should be sold, and the proceeds
distributed in certain proportions among the various religious
denominations recognized by law. This Act was vehemently opposed by
Dr. Strachan and his friends; it was far from satisfying popular
opinion in Canada; on being sent to England it was, on technical
grounds, disallowed by the judges, who considered that certain of
its provisions exceeded the powers of the legislature.
The imperial
parliament, recognizing the necessity for dealing promptly with the
question, passed an Act in the same year providing that no further
reservations should be made; that of the proceeds of previous sales
two-thirds should go to the Church of England and one-third to the
Church of Scotland; that in the case of future sales the Church of
England should have a third, the Church of Scotland a sixth, the
remainder to be applied by the governor, with the advice of his
council, "for purposes of public worship and religious instruction
in Canada," a phrase intended to recognize the claims of other
religious denominations. For a few years after the union this
decision, although by many considered inequitable, remained
undisturbed. Then the entire secularization of the Reserves became a
plank in the platform of the Reform party. When a Reform government
came into power in 1848 their most zealous supporters hoped that
immediate action would be taken to carry out secularization. But, as
has been said before, neither Mr. Baldwin nor Mr. LaFontaine was
eager for this, and both rather deprecated the opening of the
question. Besides, the legislature could not move till the Imperial
Act of 1840 had been repealed. The hesitation of the ministry in
asking for this repeal, the doubts about the justice of
secularization entertained by both Mr. Baldwin and Mr. LaFontaine,
irritated the Clear Grits and hastened the break-up of the Reform
party.
George Brown did his
utmost in the election of 1854 to defeat the regular Liberal
candidates, with the result already mentioned—the overthrow of the
Hincks-Morin ministry—by the joint votes of Conservatives and Clear
Grits, the name now given to Brown's followers. Sir Allan Mac-Nab,
the leader of the Conservative opposition, was called upon to form
an administration. It was a difficult position in which he found
himself placed. The election had made plain the wishes of a majority
of the electorate, and, if he took office at all, it must be to
carry out measures which he had steadily opposed, and in coalition
with men who had been his bitter opponents. But a final settlement
of the chief question at issue was a supreme necessity in the
interests of the country, drifting as it was under the renewed
agitation towards political anarchy. Any doubts that Sir Allan
entertained were swept away by the decisive judgment of the young
lieutenant, who was already beginning to be looked upon as the
virtual leader of the Conservative party.
Macdonald's keen
political sagacity enabled him to recognize in the relation of
parties an opportunity for which he had long been watching and
planning. Never from the first had he been entirely in sympathy with
the extreme Tory party with which he had been associated. He saw
that some of the old party lines must be abandoned. It is true the
Conservatives had always favoured the view of the Church of England
in the matter of the Clergy Reserves; but successive elections had
now made it clear that the people were bent on secularization, and
that no administration could be formed, with any hope of stability,
which did not place this upon its programme. Seigniorial tenure
stood in the same position in Quebec. Macdonald determined to bow to
the popular will, and to educate his party to follow him in doing
this. He saw that there might be established a real bond of union,
as there was a real unity of purpose, between the less rigid wing of
the Conservative party and the more moderate advocates of reform in
Upper Canada. He had taken trouble to ingratiate himself with the
French members, to whom his buoyant disposition, his keen sense of
humour, his courtesy and the gaiety of manner and speech under which
he often concealed his deeper purposes, presented an attractive
contrast to the grimly earnest temperament of the Clear Grit leader.
There was evidently no insuperable antagonism between the Upper
Canadian Conservatives and the more moderate of the French-Canadian
Liberals; indeed in many respects they were natural allies.
It was apparently at
this time that the goal towards which he was working became clear to
Macdonald. Already his imagination had conceived the great
Liberal-Conservative party which was afterwards to prove in his
skilful hands such a potent instrument in lifting Canada to a new
level of national life. The idea was still in embryo, but even in
1854 it had enough of vitality to break down long-standing
hostilities and bring men together to work for the common good.
The coalition known
as the MacNab-Morin administration contained six members of the
previous Liberal government, with an addition of four Conservatives.
Macdonald's own post was that of attorney-general for Upper Canada.
This ministry has always been regarded as the offspring of his
constructive ability. It applied itself at once and vigorously to
the task to which it was committed. The programme submitted to the
legislature embraced measures for the secularization of the Clergy
Reserves, and for dealing with the seigniorial tenure. What the
Conservative party would never have done of itself, what the Reform
party had never dared to attempt, the new administration promptly
carried out.
Loud and bitter was
the outcry of Tory veterans of many a hard fought field when they
saw the surrender of the central citadel around which their past
conflicts had been waged. Louder still and still more dread were the
denunciations hurled against what they called the "Unholy Alliance "
by those who had themselves expected to give the finishing blow to
those ancient grievances that had so long furnished the staple of
political agitation.
But moderate men on
all sides recognized the necessity for the coalition. From his
retirement the great Reform leader, Robert Baldwin, wrote to express
his formal approval. "However disinclined myself," he said, "to
adventure on such combinations, they are unquestionably, in my
opinion, under certain circumstances, not only justifiable but
expedient, and even necessary. The government of the country must be
carried on. It ought to be carried on with vigour. If that can be
done in no other way than by mutual concessions and a coalition of
parties, they become necessary. And those who, under such
circumstances, assume the arduous duties of being parties to them,
so far from deserving the opprobrium that is too frequently and
often too successfully heaped upon them, have, in my opinion, the
strongest claims upon public sympathy and support."
Mr. Hincks, the
defeated premier, promised and gave his assistance. Even Mr. Dorion,
the Rouge leader, considered the union between the Conservatives and
Mr. Morin's wing of the Liberal party a natural one. The members who
had accepted office in the ministry were all reelected on going back
to their constituents; and thus the seal of popular approval was in
a measure put upon the policy of coalition.
Macdonald himself
introduced the bill for the secularization of the Clergy Reserves on
October 17th, 1854; on November 23rd it passed the assembly by a
vote of sixty-two to thirty-nine; on December 10th the legislative
council agreed to it without amendment; and thus in a few short
weeks the coalition rid the country forever of a question which for
many years had been a fruitful source of strife. In this final
settlement due regard was paid to those vested interests to which
the faith of the Crown was pledged. Provision was made for the
payment during the lives of existing incumbents of those stipends or
allowances which had been charged upon the Reserves. The government
was empowered to commute these stipends for their money value on an
equitable basis, though only with the consent of the incumbents
themselves, the money so paid being capitalized and invested for the
good of the church concerned. In cases like those of the Wesleyan
and Roman Catholic bodies, where annual grants had been made in a
block sum without reference to individual incumbents, it was
provided that the payments should be continued for a term of twenty
years. When all these first charges on the fund had been paid, the
residue was to be divided among the city and county municipalities
in proportion to their population, and applied to ordinary municipal
purposes.
While these terms of
settlement were doubtless better than would have been granted at
less sympathetic hands, the clergy, and especially those of the
Anglican Church, who were most largely concerned, lost heavily in
comparison with their legal claims. Yet even by them this settlement
was accepted as final, and in a spirit which justified the high
compliment paid to them by Macdonald in a public speech a few years
later. "To the credit of the churches concerned, and of their
clergy, be it said, that, great as was their loss, and enormous
their sacrifice—for they had a claim on the full half of the
proceeds—they acquiesced in the settlement we proposed, because they
felt that they ought not to be the cause of strife, and would not be
placed in a false position, and have it said that they looked more
after temporal than spiritual things. Though the pittances paid were
small, I am happy to have personally received assurances from the
clergy of these churches—from their bishops downward—that they are
glad our legislation succeeded."
While the Clergy
Reserves were being dealt with, another Act finally settling the
question of seigniorial tenure was being pushed through the
legislature. This grievance was an inheritance from the old French
regime, under which an effort was made to introduce into the New
World the feudal system of France in the Middle Ages. Large blocks
of territory were granted to seigniors or superior vassals by the
Crown on a tenure of "faith and homage," together with other
conditions, among which was an obligation to clear the land within a
limited time on pain of forfeiture. The seigniors subdivided their
land among the peasants or habitants, who in turn were subject to
various feudal imposts and dues. The exaction of these dues and of
various feudal obligations connected with this system of land tenure
had gradually become exceedingly vexatious, and furnished much
ground for discontent in Lower Canada. In the settlement now made
the radical method of cure, by confiscation, was avoided, and regard
was had for those vested rights which the seigniors had acquired by
original grant and by the lapse of time. Commissioners were
appointed to enquire into and fix the value of these rights; a
tribunal was provided to which doubtful questions could be referred,
and a commutation fund was set apart for the indemnification of the
seigniors. But all feudal rights and duties in Lower Canada were
finally abolished, and when the commissioners finished their work
five years later, and the necessary money to close the accounts for
payment was voted, this remnant of the mediaval system of France,
which had been so fruitful a source of agitation and discontent,
disappeared from the field of Canadian politics. At a few points
along the St. Lawrence certain harmless survivals of seigniorial
ownership still remain to add picturesqueness to the conditions of
life, but they no longer furnish grounds for irritation. |
