Now the English press opens in full cry on Canada.
There has been a "crisis "—the fact cannot be concealed : happily it was met, and we hope surmounted, by straightforward decision on the part of the Governor-General. By the help of the Colonial Gazette, we were enabled to make our readers aware of its approach so long ago as the 3d of last month ; and a letter copied into our last num- ber exhibited the wavering of parties in the very midst of it. On the same day that the letter from Kingston was written, the very course which the writer had previously recommended in the Colo- nial Gazette was adopted by Sir CHARLES BAGOT : two of the least popular members of the Cabinet have retired, and Sir thulium has conferred power on the most popular leader of the French party in the Lower and of the Reformers in the Upper division of Canada—M. LAFONTAINE and Mr. BALDWIN. As we stated in our last number, the tender of office had been rejected by the Anglo-French alliance ; now it has been accepted. The precise difference between the two offers is not yet explained to us : if the essential terms were nearly the same, the manner of the second overture may have been more gratiqing, or it found the parties in a better disposition. Thus a junction has been effected between the Upper Canada Reformers and the Lower Canada French, who constitute the majority in either division, and the majority in the Legislature. For the first time, the Government and the great bulk of the people in the province are on the same side. For the first time, full effect has been given to the principle of "respon- sible government," which Lord Dormant recommended, and Lord &DENHAM evaded or tampered with, rather than honestly prac- tised. The change for Canada is at least as great as when the late Whig Ministers in this country first transferred the influence of the Government to the side of the majority in Ireland. The increase to the Governor-General's popularity is manifested in the passing of a vote—not of" want of confidence," which the House of Assembly had been discussing just before, but—of thanks to him for his conduct, by a majority of 54 to 5.
Of course, so important a change could not occur without pro- voking much anger among those unfavourably affected by it ; and the parties of the once dominant minorities—arbitrary in propor- tion to their numerical smallness—the "Family Compact" of Upper Canada and the " British " party of Lower Canada—are excessive in their anger and bitterness of condemnation. They denounce Sir CHARLES Becox as having thrown himself into the arms of "Radicalism," and through him assail the all-accountable PEEL. This was to be expected: but do not let us here be deceived 'by words. The Ministerial Morning Post hesitatingly says—" In the present state of our information, we abstain from offering any opi- nion as to the wisdom of this arrangement : it may have been in- dispensable to the carrying on of the Government under the new constitution : but the general impression it will create in this country will be of an unsatisfactory character, inasmuch as it must be regarded as a triumph to that party in Canada which has hitherto been considered, and certainly not without reason, as dis- loyal and essentially Anti-British." No assertion could be more mistaken : the French Canadians are not naturally disposed to be any thing but loyal ; they are attached to the British connexion, and to Monarchy; and they are Anti-British only in the sense of being opposed to the so-called "British" party in their own sec- tion of the province : Britain itself had nothing to do with their " Anti-British " turbulence ; it was merely the rude struggle to free themselves from innumerable petty but mortifying grievances of daily life, inflicted by a local clique. Theoretical questions of Church and State politics do not come into play in Canada as they do in this country : their questions are of practical and almost per- sonal application, nearly touching the comfort of many influential in- dividuals. Even the theory of "responsible government" was a re- cent importation, by a Governor-General, as a remedy for practical disorder. It only signifies, that the Canadians shall be governed in the same manner as the real "British "—and did not Sir ROBERT PEEL assert for Canada that it is "an integral part of the empire " ?
Previous page
