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Date: 1864-07-18
By: The Montreal Herald
Citation: “Federation”, The Montreal Herald (18 July, 1864)
Other formats: TBA

FEDERATION.

—In dealing with this question, whether we use the word to signify the union, under one league, of all the British North American Colonies, or the relaxation of the present tie which unites the two ancient Canadian Provinces in one, we must from the first admit that the scheme does not want for authority. We all know why Canada was constituted in two Provinces, and how that form of political existence obtained the support of Burke, and Pitt, and other great statesmen of the day. Justice to English settlers was thought to require that they should be enabled to carry with them their own laws and to practice their own ideas, and this, it was felt, they could not do in the immediate neighbourhood of the well-established French nationality of Lower Canada, unless the natural and peculiar sentiments of the new subjects should be overridden by despotic government. Such a government no Englishmen ever thought of establishing anywhere for men of European race—least of all on this Continent. In order, therefore, to reconcile the two necessities of the country—on the one hand, to enable British settlers to have British laws and to legislate in accordance with the bent of the national character, and, on the other, to grant constitutional government to the ceded country, the Province of Quebec was divided into Upper and Lower Canada. Settlers could take their own choice, and live under whichever dominant society they pleased. As this act was not passed until after the American war, we must suppose that while the great statesmen of the day saw the necessity of the division thus effected, they entertained the idea of a nexus of some kind between the two new Provinces, either derived from a common allegiance to the same sovereign, or from some direct legislation by metropolitan authority or convention between the two local governments. In fact, “joint authority,” ridiculous as the word seemed to a great many persons, when uttered at the convention of “Grits,”—a word of contempt which, we suppose, will hereafter be banished from polite conversation—was speedily constituted for certain purposes, in the shape of a joint commission to determine the share that the two Provinces should respectively receive out of the duties levied at the seaports, which were, of course, both in Lower Canada. The natural configuration of the country, such as we believe is without example in history, and which, probably, could never have been mapped out in political geography for any territory having actively hostile neighbours, since its long drawn out frontier is precisely the shape most exposed to attack, must have seemed to them to render some concerted action absolutely necessary.

In practice, therefore, Canada, even before the union, was confederated for certain limited purposes, though by a very loose tie. That arrangement, though the country progressed under it, was not entirely satisfactory, and, in 1836, the Imperial Parliament adopted a resolution declaring that it was expedient to permit the two Provinces to make provision for the joint regulation and adjustment of their common interests in the trade and commerce of the country. All regular government, however, was for the time stopped by the events of the years 1837 and 1838; but when Lord Durham came out to compose the storm, he was directed to consider whether the just demands of Upper Canada should not be met by erecting some “joint legislative authority, which should preside over all questions of common interest to “the two Provinces, and which might be appealed “to in extraordinary cases to arbitrate “between contending parties in either; preserving, “however, to each Province its distinct “Legislature, with authority in all matters of “an exclusively domestic concern.” We see, therefore, that the “joint authority” which for years formed the staple of the mirth of the “moderate party” writers and speakers, was a phrase with a very respectable sort of paternity; notwithstanding it was subsequently adopted by those rascally, “looking to Washington,” grits, whom you know, Sir, we have now taken to our bosom.

Lord Durham, however, instead of this, and partly, no doubt, to protect the interests of the English-speaking inhabitants of Lower Canada, who had not found themselves very easy under the French Canadian majority, recommended that union of the two Canadian Provinces which was immediately carried, with the addition, however, of an arrangement, which has not yet been acted on, for admitting the other B. N. A. Provinces.

With wise foresight, his lordship advised that the joint legislature should be so constituted as to give “representation, as “near as may be, in proportion to population.”

His lordship did not think that it was necessary to qualify this by any caveat against its being understood to mean something else, say, for instance, universal suffrage; but he probably had not learned so new a form of logic as that acquired by gentlemen who have since had to deal with the subject.

His Lordship was sagaciously averse to the plan of giving an equal number of “members to the two Provinces, in order to attain the temporary end of outnumbering the “French,” and avowed that to do so “would be “a violation of the principles of representation”; but he proposed that the commission which was to regulate the joint constitution should “form a plan of local government by “elective bodies, subordinate to the general legislature, and exercising a complete control over such local affairs as do not come within the province of general legislation.” This recommendation was reduced to a bill, introduced to Parliament by Lord John Russell dividing Canada into five great “Municipal” districts, of which that of Montreal was to be the centre. The Municipal Governments, as they were called, were to have the power of assessing rates and taxes for local purposes; and the qualification for voters—for his Lordship did not, we repeat, think representation according to population had anything to do with universal suffrage—was to be the same for the local and general governments. Whether that scheme would have worked better than the one actually adopted we do not know. It was not popular among the British inhabitants of Lower Canada, and Lord Durham having been violently attacked by Lord Brougham on account of his Canadian administration, withdrew from the field in disgust. His plans were all changed, and the Union Act was passed, including, as an essential part of it, that very equality of representation whose evils he deprecated and we have experienced. This experience has naturally set to work on the suggestion of a remedy, all those who do not make their own profit and position by resisting right and justice till it is wrung from them by force. Accordingly about the same time two meetings of politicians were held, one in Upper and one in Lower Canada for the purpose of devising the best means to escape from our great difficulty. One of these was composed of liberal or “grit” delegates—if we may be allowed an obsolete expression—from all parts of Upper Canada, who passed a resolution containing that celebrated, much laughed at, but now generally adopted expression of joint authority. The whole platform was as follows :—

5. Resolved,—“That in the opinion of this assembly, the best practicable remedy for the evils now encountered in the government of Canada is to be found in the formation of two or more local governments, to which shall be committed the control of all matters of a local or sectional character, and some joint authority charged with such matters as are necessarily common to both sections of the Province.”

5. Resolved—“That while the details of the changes proposed in the last resolution are necessarily subject for future arrangement, yet this assembly deems it imperative to declare that no government would be satisfactory to the people of Upper Canada which is not based on the principle of Representation by Population.”

About the time that the “Grits” were taking this course in Upper Canada, some leaders among those other revolutionary villains, the “rouges” of Lower Canada, also assembled, and a committee of their number, consisting of Messrs. A. A. Dorion, T. D. McGee, L. T. Drummond and L. A. Dessaulles published a report in which they gave it as their opinion “that whether we consider the present needs or the probable future condition of the country, the true, the statesman-like solution is to be sought in the substitution of a purely Federative for the present so-called Legislative Union; the former, it it is believed, would enable us to escape all the evils, and to retain all the advantages, appertaining to the existing Union.” They also claimed for their party the credit for having, in 1856, formally submitted this method of arranging the difficulties of the country to Parliament by means of a resolution which was proposed by Mr. Dorion. If, therefore, weight of authority is judged to afford sufficient sanction for such a scheme, federation, in some shape, may be fairly said to have a consensus adequate to the satisfaction almost of a theological council. It must, however, be observed that all through the history of these opinions, the federative principle whether by name or in practice, has been adopted not as the best course; but as a means of conciliating two conflicting claims—the first that the principle of all representative government should not be destroyed by giving the minority of the population a majority of the representation—the second that the peculiar interests of the minority should not be overborne and sacrificed by the fact that they are in a minority. Federation is in short an expedient—as it seems to us a timid expedient, but perhaps also a necessary one, for flanking a logical obstacle, which the assailants have not the courage to attack in front. The Upper Canadians have claimed what is their manifest right. The Lower Canadians have resisted the claim not because it was wrong; but because they saw no way of shielding themselves from a smaller, or we may say local wrong, except by perpetuating a larger, or in other words a general wrong. At present by their leaders they capitulate as to the general question. Take they say a larger share of influence, which is your due; but give us protection against your abuse of it to our prejudice, in things which do not concern you. The question is already very much simplified by this concession, and as those “who have hitherto for a particular purpose” demanded the right to be paramount for all purposes, are now ready to forego that claim and only seek for adequate guarantees, the question will resolve itself into this—whether there cannot be other guarantees quite as effectual, much less costly, and exposed to fewer inconveniencies than that afforded by the costly machinery of local legislation superadded to general legislation. We do not reject the federative scheme in default of a better, though our acceptance of it will of course depend upon its details, but we cannot help hoping that the question being frankly examined jointly, by opposing parties for the purpose of coming to an agreement, instead of separately for the purpose of making objection, will be found capable of a solution simpler, cheaper, and more accordant with the principles of our own time honoured constitution.