The Canadian Dominion [39]
to the provision of more adequate defense. A bill providing for a compulsory levy was defeated in 1862, more on personal and party grounds than on its own merits, and the Ministry next in office took the other course of increasing the volunteer force and of providing for officers' training. Compared with any earlier arrangements for defense, the new plans marked a great advance; but when judged in the light of the possible necessity of repelling American invasion, they were plainly inadequate. A burst of criticism followed from England; press and politicians joined in denouncing the blind and supine colonials. Did they not know that invasion by the United States was inevitable? "If the people of the North fail," declared a noble lord, "they will attack Canada as a compensation for their losses; if they succeed, they will attack Canada in the drunkenness of victory." If such an invasion came, Britain had neither the power nor the will, the "Times" declared, to protect Canada without any aid on her part; not the power, for "our empire is too vast, our population too small, our antagonist too powerful"; not the will, for "we no longer monopolize the trade of the colonies; we no longer job their patronage." To these amazing attacks Canadians replied that they knew the United States better than Englishmen did. They were prepared to take their share in defense, but they could not forget that if war came it would not be by any act of Canada. It was soon noted that those who most loudly denounced Canada for not arming to the teeth were the Southern sympathizers. "The 'Times' has done more than its share in creating bad feeling between England and the United States," declared a Toronto newspaper, "and would have liked to see the Canadians take up the quarrel which it has raised . . . . We have no idea of Canada being made a victim of the Jefferson Bricks on either side of the Atlantic."
The question of defense fell into the background when the war ended and the armies of the Union went back to their farms and shops. But the discussion left in the minds of most Englishmen the belief that the possession of such colonies was a doubtful blessing. Manchester men like Bright, Liberals like Gladstone and Cornewall Lewis, Conservatives like Lowe and Disraeli, all came to believe that separation was only a question of time. Yet honor made them hesitate to set the defenseless colonies adrift to be seized by the first hungry neighbor.
At this juncture the plans for uniting all the colonies in one great federation seemed to open a way out; united, the colonies could stand alone. Thus Confederation found support in Britain as well as a stimulus from the United States. This, however, was not enough. Confederation would not have come when it did--and that might have meant it would never have come at all--had not party and sectional deadlock forced Canadian politicians to seek a remedy in a wider union.
At first all had gone well with the Union of 1841. It did not take the politicians long to learn how to use the power that responsible government put into their hands. After Elgin's day the Governor General fell back into the role of constitutional monarch which cabinet control made easy for him. In the forties, men had spoken of Sydenham and Bagot, Metcalfe and Elgin; in the fifties, they spoke of Baldwin and La Fontaine, Hincks and Macdonald and Cartier and Brown, and less and less of the Governors in whose name these men ruled. Politics then attracted more of the country's ablest men than it does now, and the party leaders included many who would have made their mark in any parliament in the world. Baldwin and La Fontaine, united to the end, resigned office in 1851, believing that they had played their part in establishing responsible government and feeling out of touch with the radical elements of their following who were demanding further change. Their place was taken in Canada West by Hincks, an adroit tactician and a skilled financier, intent on railway building and trade development; and in Canada East by Morin, a somewhat colorless
The question of defense fell into the background when the war ended and the armies of the Union went back to their farms and shops. But the discussion left in the minds of most Englishmen the belief that the possession of such colonies was a doubtful blessing. Manchester men like Bright, Liberals like Gladstone and Cornewall Lewis, Conservatives like Lowe and Disraeli, all came to believe that separation was only a question of time. Yet honor made them hesitate to set the defenseless colonies adrift to be seized by the first hungry neighbor.
At this juncture the plans for uniting all the colonies in one great federation seemed to open a way out; united, the colonies could stand alone. Thus Confederation found support in Britain as well as a stimulus from the United States. This, however, was not enough. Confederation would not have come when it did--and that might have meant it would never have come at all--had not party and sectional deadlock forced Canadian politicians to seek a remedy in a wider union.
At first all had gone well with the Union of 1841. It did not take the politicians long to learn how to use the power that responsible government put into their hands. After Elgin's day the Governor General fell back into the role of constitutional monarch which cabinet control made easy for him. In the forties, men had spoken of Sydenham and Bagot, Metcalfe and Elgin; in the fifties, they spoke of Baldwin and La Fontaine, Hincks and Macdonald and Cartier and Brown, and less and less of the Governors in whose name these men ruled. Politics then attracted more of the country's ablest men than it does now, and the party leaders included many who would have made their mark in any parliament in the world. Baldwin and La Fontaine, united to the end, resigned office in 1851, believing that they had played their part in establishing responsible government and feeling out of touch with the radical elements of their following who were demanding further change. Their place was taken in Canada West by Hincks, an adroit tactician and a skilled financier, intent on railway building and trade development; and in Canada East by Morin, a somewhat colorless