The Canadian Dominion [31]
the term of office of the Governors; henceforth it was to be the tenure of Cabinets which counted. Elgin ceased even to attend the Council, and after his time the Governor became more and more the constitutional monarch, busied in laying corner stones and listening to tiresome official addresses. In emergencies, and especially in the gap or interregnum between Ministries, the personality of the Governor might count, but as a rule this power remained latent. Yet in two turning points in Canadian history, both of which had to do with the relations of Canada to the United States, Elgin was to play an important part: the Annexation Movement of 1849 and the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854.
In the struggle for responsible government, loyalty to the British Crown, loyalty of a superior and exclusive brand, had been the creed and the war cry of the Tory party. Yet in 1849 men saw the hotheads of this group in Montreal stoning a British Governor General and setting fire to the Parliament Buildings, while a few months later their elders issued a manifesto urging the annexation of Canada to the United States. Why this sudden shift? Simply because the old colonial system they had known and supported had come to an end. The Empire had been taken to mean racial ascendancy and trade profit. Now both the political and the economic pillars were crumbling, and the Empire appeared to have no further excuse for existence.
In the past British connection had meant to many of the English minority in Lower Canada a means of redressing the political balance, of retaining power in face of a body of French-speaking citizens outnumbering them three or four to one. Now that support had been withdrawn. Britain had consented, unwillingly, to the setting up of responsible government and the calling to office of men who a dozen years before had been in arms against the Queen or fleeing from the province. This was gall and wormwood to the English. But when the Ministry introduced, and the Assembly passed, the Rebellion Losses Bill for compensating those who had suffered destruction of property in the outbreak, and when the terms were so drawn as to make it possible, its critics charged, that rebels as well as loyalists would be compensated, flesh and blood could bear no more. The Governor was pelted with rotten eggs when he came down to the House to sign the bill, and the buildings where Parliament had met since 1844, when the capital had been transferred from Kingston to Montreal, were stormed and burned by a street mob.
The anger felt against the Ministry thus turned against the British Government. The English minority felt like an advance guard in a hostile country, deserted by the main forces, an Ulster abandoned to Home Ruler and Sinn Feiner. They turned to the south, to the other great English-speaking Protestant people. If the older branch of the race would not give them protection or a share in dominance, perhaps the younger branch could and would. As Lord Durham had suggested, they were resolved that "Lower Canada must be ENGLISH, at the expense, if necessary, of not being BRITISH."
But it was not only the political basis of the old colonial system that was rudely shattered. The economic foundations, too, were passing away, and with them the profits of the Montreal merchants, who formed the backbone of the annexation movement. It has been seen that under this system Great Britain had aimed at setting up a self-contained empire, with a monopoly of the markets of the colonies. Now for her own sake she was sweeping away the tariff and shipping monopoly which had been built up through more than two centuries. The logic of Adam Smith, the experiments of Huskisson, the demands of manufacturers for cheap food and raw materials, the passionate campaigns of Cobden and Bright, and the rains that brought the Irish famine, at last had their effect. In 1846 Peel himself undertook the repeal of the Corn Laws. To Lower Canada this was a crushing blow. Until of late the preference given in the British market on colonial goods in return for the control of
In the struggle for responsible government, loyalty to the British Crown, loyalty of a superior and exclusive brand, had been the creed and the war cry of the Tory party. Yet in 1849 men saw the hotheads of this group in Montreal stoning a British Governor General and setting fire to the Parliament Buildings, while a few months later their elders issued a manifesto urging the annexation of Canada to the United States. Why this sudden shift? Simply because the old colonial system they had known and supported had come to an end. The Empire had been taken to mean racial ascendancy and trade profit. Now both the political and the economic pillars were crumbling, and the Empire appeared to have no further excuse for existence.
In the past British connection had meant to many of the English minority in Lower Canada a means of redressing the political balance, of retaining power in face of a body of French-speaking citizens outnumbering them three or four to one. Now that support had been withdrawn. Britain had consented, unwillingly, to the setting up of responsible government and the calling to office of men who a dozen years before had been in arms against the Queen or fleeing from the province. This was gall and wormwood to the English. But when the Ministry introduced, and the Assembly passed, the Rebellion Losses Bill for compensating those who had suffered destruction of property in the outbreak, and when the terms were so drawn as to make it possible, its critics charged, that rebels as well as loyalists would be compensated, flesh and blood could bear no more. The Governor was pelted with rotten eggs when he came down to the House to sign the bill, and the buildings where Parliament had met since 1844, when the capital had been transferred from Kingston to Montreal, were stormed and burned by a street mob.
The anger felt against the Ministry thus turned against the British Government. The English minority felt like an advance guard in a hostile country, deserted by the main forces, an Ulster abandoned to Home Ruler and Sinn Feiner. They turned to the south, to the other great English-speaking Protestant people. If the older branch of the race would not give them protection or a share in dominance, perhaps the younger branch could and would. As Lord Durham had suggested, they were resolved that "Lower Canada must be ENGLISH, at the expense, if necessary, of not being BRITISH."
But it was not only the political basis of the old colonial system that was rudely shattered. The economic foundations, too, were passing away, and with them the profits of the Montreal merchants, who formed the backbone of the annexation movement. It has been seen that under this system Great Britain had aimed at setting up a self-contained empire, with a monopoly of the markets of the colonies. Now for her own sake she was sweeping away the tariff and shipping monopoly which had been built up through more than two centuries. The logic of Adam Smith, the experiments of Huskisson, the demands of manufacturers for cheap food and raw materials, the passionate campaigns of Cobden and Bright, and the rains that brought the Irish famine, at last had their effect. In 1846 Peel himself undertook the repeal of the Corn Laws. To Lower Canada this was a crushing blow. Until of late the preference given in the British market on colonial goods in return for the control of