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Date: 1866-10-25
By: Montreal Herald
Citation: “Mr. Galt Turns up Again” Montreal Herald (25 October 1866).
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MR. GALT TURNS UP AGAIN.—When the Confederation scheme was first broached, that portion of the English-speaking, especially the Protestant population of Lower Canada, who possessed intelligence enough to observe the shadows of coming events, felt that its success would be the complete annihilation of even such small share of political influence as they at present possess. Accordingly it was understood that their representatives would be likely to decline the invitation to commit suicide. Their defection would have caused the vote from Lower Canada—one of the separate members of the intended Confederacy—to show a majority against the measure. To prevent this something had to be done; but here was the difficulty. The whole scheme being one which, under pretense of conciliating adverse interests, merely brought conflicting interests together by stratagem and manœuvre, to leave them face to face with the old hostilities still unappeased, and in more inconvenient relationship than ever, it was impossible openly to concede what was required by Mr. Galt’s followers, without exciting the opposition of a much more important body of Lower Canadian representatives. This made an open avowal of these concessions from the Ministerial benches impossible, and therefore resort was had to a trick as contemptible and unparliamentary on the part of the tricksters, as it was dangerous to the interests of those who might be simple enough to trust to it. What the Ministry dared not declare in Parliament, Mr. Galt wrote in a private letter to the representatives of the Eastern Townships—a promise that at some future time they should have a school bill which would protect their constituents from the evils which they apprehended. We have said that reliance on an under-handed assurance of this kind was dangerous to the confiding party, and the reason is obvious If the Government were sincere and sufficiently powerful to carry their intentions, there was no reason why they should not announce them in the usual Parliamentary manner, by which alone a Ministry can really be pledged to a given line of policy. If they were not sincere, or not powerful enough to effect what was desired, the private promise was valueless. The last alternative was the one which found most acceptance with those who can see the usual distance through the hole of the political millstone, and the anticipations of these persons did not turn out to be erroneous. When the private pledge came to be put in the shape of a Parliamentary enactment, the Lower Canadian Ministry found themselves unable to induce their French Canadian friends to go with them—just as every one at all acquainted with our politics must have known from the first they would be unable—unless upon conditions inadmissible for the Upper Canadian portion of the Ministry. Now, if Parliamentary Government means anything more than a succession of dodges, the breaking of this promise ought to have led to opposition to the scheme from those whose adhesion to it was based upon the condition that the promise would be fulfilled. Or there is another logical alternative—they might have declared that they had ceased to attach any considerable importance to the condition, and were satisfied to do without it. They did neither. Mr. Galt, as their leader and representative, resigned his place in the Government; but at the same time declared that the Ministry were right in breaking the pledge he had given in their name, and promised still to aid them in a policy support to which had been given by his followers, and we must suppose by himself, on a condition which had been abandoned. If the Ministry were right, why did Mr. Galt leave them? If they were wrong in abandoning a pledge they had authorized him to give in their name, and a condition upon which he had given them his support, and had induced others to do so, how could he consistently support a policy against the dangers of which his friends were left without any protection? These questions are unanswerable. There was either no sufficient reason for Mr. Galt to leave the Ministry, or the reason was that his colleagues had failed of their plighted word, and so failed as to omit from their entire scheme a part which he deemed so vital that without it he could not continue to act with them. If he did so continue to act with them, upon Confederation as upon all other subjects, why, indeed, should he leave them? There could be but one statesmanlike cause for his resignation—that was the obligation which he felt to sever himself on some important point from the measures of the Government. Instead of that he severed himself from the men, which signified nothing, and adhered to the policy, of which his resignation, if it meant anything, indicated his complete disapproval. Thus the matter has remained since the meeting of Parliament; Mr. Galt’s followers sold; Mr. Galt nominally out of the Ministry, but really acting heartily with them, until a few days ago, when a new shuffle of the cards took place, that has been chronicled by one of our contemporaries in language so unctuous and jubilant, and withall full of such simple faith, that it ought to recommend him to the office of drawing up ecclesiastical pronunciamentos, should a secretary be required for such service:—

We have much pleasure in announcing that during the recent protracted sittings of the Cabinet at Ottawa, the subject of the position of the Lower Canada Education question was very fully considered. The Ministry were, we understand, desirous that Mr. Galt should be appointed as a delegate to represent the interests of the British population; but that gentleman felt that he could not accept unless he was assured as to the views of the Government on the points that so seriously concern his countrymen and co-religionists, and which so deeply arouse their feelings. We are informed that the Ministry entirely satisfied Mr. Galt of their determination to give practical effect to the pledges given in Parliament, and that gentleman has in consequence accepted the appointment of delegate for the express purpose of watching over these important interests, as well as of lending his aid to the consummation of the measure of Confederation.

We feel that our Protestant friends may rest assured that the man who resigned the honours and emoluments of office on this question will not, as a delegate, be found wanting to his trust as their representative. And we hail with great satisfaction the approaching settlement of a question which might have been fraught with so much danger to the kindly and cordial relations which have of late so happily subsisted between the people of different races and creeds in Canada.

Mr. Galt, therefore, has accepted the appointment of delegate to England for the “express purpose of watching there over these important interests” of his fellow countrymen and co-religionists. Passing over the whimsicality of the title of delegate given to the associate of a self appointed body, who also appoint him to represent themselves, what is to be the nature of the action by which Mr Galt can watch over, for any useful purpose, these so-called important interests? The Lower Canadian representatives have by a majority accepted the Quebec scheme of Confederation, upon the assurance that it was so sacred an agreement that it could not be touched by any amendment to be proposed in our own Legislature, and upon the solemn assurance by Mr. Cartier that he would not consent to its being altered in England. That scheme contains no dispositions intended to protect these “important interests” of the “countrymen and co-religionists” of the ex-Finance Minister; and though he had solemnly promised that such protection should be afforded in the separate constitution of Lower Canada, the Parliamentary representatives for that one of the intended separate Provinces rejected the promised enactment almost with unanimity. What is to be done now? Is Mr. Galt to induce the Imperial Parliament to override by its authority the repeated promises made by Mr. Cartier that the Quebec scheme should not be altered; and this upon a subject on which the greatest interest is felt by the Lower Canadian majority, and upon which they have pronounced unmistakably against the dispositions of which Mr. Galt is put forward as the advocate? While it is pretended that the British Parliament is to be requested merely to homologate a scheme approved by the people of each of the separate Provinces, is it to be asked to incorporate into the constitution an enactment on a subject which that constitution, as agreed upon, has left to be regulated by the local Parliaments, and which the present representatives of the Lower Canada Parliament have refused to regulate in the sense desired by Mr. Galt? Or is Mr. Galt to make two or three speeches in the Downing Street conclave; fail of their alleged purpose; resign his seat as a delegate; but then say that, notwithstanding, his fellow delegates are quite right in refusing to protect the interests on whose behalf he made the voyage to England; and go on helping to saddle an oppressive system on his well beloved “countrymen and co-religionists?” It is manifest that here again, as throughout all this business of Confederation, a fraud is to be practised upon some one. Either the semi-official announcements of a renewal of Mr. Galt’s protection which has hitherto proved so futile, will, as we suppose, turn out to be a mere tub to the whale—something intended to amuse the English speaking part of our population until Confederation is carried, and their representatives shall have each got his share of the £4,000,000 loan; or else the authority of Parliament on a subject specially reserved to it, by the constitution as agreed to, is to be once more set aside. Which of these courses will be taken our readers may judge for themselves, when they remember that one of the parties is weak and usually inert, and the other strong and active.—the one Mr. Galt, alone in England, with the feeble voice of a half-hearted people at his back, and with colleagues who may perhaps yield if they must, but will of course prefer not to yield; the other, the majority, the people of Lower Canada, speaking on a question in which they think their religion is concerned, and supported by the various organs of their Church in England. The fact is, that to trust to such guarantees as are now promised, even if they could be carried out, is like a man proposing to stand an hour in a furnace protected by a wrapping of wet clothes. The guarantees are not likely to be obtained; but if they are, how long will they serve as a protection to a minority always surrounded by an immense majority of another way of thinking. If we do not want to be burned let us keep out of the furnace.

We have argued this matter, of course, on the assumption that the Upper Canadians are not disposed to make those concessions upon the school laws which would be regarded as compensations by the Lower Canadian majority for like concessions here; and besides the probabilities arising from the known state of Upper Canadian opinion, we have information derived from what we believe a well informed source to the effect that Messrs. Howland and Macdougall very plainly refused to be parties to any more changes in the Upper Canadian school law. They stated, we believe, that the Upper Canadian liberals owed nothing to Mr. Galt or his friends, and that the latter must get out of their troubles in their own fashion. We are also led to believe that the extreme self-denial of the ex-Finance Minister, on which our contemporary builds so fine a moral edifice, was not very visible at Ottawa. On the contrary, unless report greatly belies the gentlemen concerned, one chief cause of the prolongation of the conferences was the persistent and delicate demands of Mr. Galt to have his old place back again, and the equally persistent and delicate assurances of Mr. Howland that he had been made a fool of often enough already, and that he would see Mr. Galt in the Post Office, the Presidency of the Council, or in less pleasant localities; but certainly not in the Finance Department while Mr. Howland remained a Minister. But great are the uses of champagne and other good living, to say nothing of the free trips to England and the eclat belonging thereto; so the differences were soldered up by these appliances at the very moment when the rent threatened to become too large for further decent concealment.