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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



readers. Moreover, Lord Carnarvon was not in 

 office when the confederation measure was pro- 

 jected. His lordship succeeded Mr. Card well in 

 July, 1866, and the meeting of the delegates from 

 the North American provinces on the invitation 

 of Governor-General Lord Monck, sanctioned by 

 Mr. Cardwell, to consider the practicability of 

 confederation, took place at Quebec on the 10th 

 of October, 1864. In 1865 the project was sub- 

 mitted to the two Houses of the Canadian Legis- 

 lature, and carried by 91 to 83 in the Legislative 

 Assembly and by 45 to 15 in the Legislative 

 Council. In 1866, soon after Lord Carnarvon's 

 acceptance of office, he had to consider whether 

 he would recommend Parliament to sanction a 

 measure desired by the North American prov- 

 inces, and which had been approved by his pred- 

 ecessor. Lord Carnarvon is entitled to the 

 credit of having given a cordial support to the 

 proposed union, which had been devised by the 

 colonists themselves ; but when writers who have 

 no idea whatever of the circumstances which 

 made Canadian confederation an imperative ne- 

 cessity, refer to it as a measure which a Secretary 

 of State could have originated and carried, they 

 only deceive the English public, whose knowledge 

 of facts is probably about equal to their own. 



A very brief narrative of the circumstances 

 which led to Canadian confederation will, I vent- 

 ure to hope, not be out of place. After the Ca- 

 nadian rebellion of 1837 the Earl of Durham was 

 appointed Governor-General of British North 

 America, and likewise High Commissioner to in- 

 quire into the political institutions of the prov- 

 inces. In his celebrated report he admitted, as 

 fully as had ever been claimed by the reformers 

 of Upper and Lower Canada, the defects of the 

 system of government which had produced such 

 calamitous results, but he likewise expressed a 

 strong opinion that the national feud between the 

 populations of French and British origin was so 

 intense that it was absolutely necessary to reunite 

 the provinces in order to secure a British ma- 

 jority. His lordship's views can be gathered from 

 the following brief sentence in his report : " Never 

 again will the present generation of French Ca- 

 nadians yield a loyal submission to a British Gov- 

 ernment; never again will the English popula- 

 tion tolerate the authority of a House of Assem- 

 bly in which the French shall possess or even 

 approximate to a majority." In the opinion which 

 I have quoted Lord Russell, then Secretary of 

 State for the Colonies, and Lord Sydenham, whom 

 he appointed Governor-General of Canada, fully 

 concurred, and the consequence was the Union 



Act of 1840. Lord Durham had recommended a 

 representation of the reunited province on the 

 basis of population ; but the effect of this would 

 have been that Lower Canada, which had the 

 largest population, would have had a majority of 

 representatives, and to this Upper Canada would 

 not have consented. Indeed, the Upper Canada 

 Assembly was anxious to modify Lord Syden- 

 ham's proposal for equal representation so far as 

 to get a majority of representatives for the mi- 

 nority of the population. The union was finally 

 arranged on the basis of equality of representa- 

 tion, and lasted about twenty-five years, during 

 the last ten of which there was almost constant 

 discord. Experience proved that there were ques- 

 tions on which the representatives of the Roman 

 Catholics of Lower Canada and of the Protestants 

 of Upper Canada could not agree ; and as the 

 population of the latter increased, owing to im- 

 migration, much more rapidly than the former, a 

 demand was made for representation in propor- 

 tion to population. To this the Lower Canada 

 representatives offered a determined opposition, 

 and about the year 1864 it became almost im- 

 possible to carry on the government, owing to 

 the conflicting views of the majorities in Upper 

 and Lower Canada. After a violent party war- 

 fare of some years' standing, both parties became 

 convinced that the only solution of the difficulty 

 was the repeal of the union, and a confederation 

 of all the provinces with independent local Legis- 

 latures. To the principle of confederation the 

 imperial authorities had no objection, and the 

 details were settled at a conference of delegates 

 from all the provinces. The confederation scheme 

 has been a success, and it is to be hoped will 

 continue to be so, but most certainly it has afford- 

 ed conclusive evidence that Lord Durham was 

 wholly mistaken in the opinion which I have 

 quoted above. It will, I think, be admitted that 

 the confederation of the British-American prov- 

 inces, under the circumstances which I have very 

 briefly but truthfully stated, cannot be invoked 

 as affording evidence that any other scheme of 

 confederation under wholly different circum- 

 stances would be equally successful. 



Sir Julius Vogel and Mr. Goldwin Smith con- 

 cur in the opinion that the subsisting connection 

 between the parent state and the self-governing 

 colonies must be temporary. The former de- 

 clares in the paper under consideration that "a 

 settlement one way or the other should be ar- 

 rived at, so that the nature of their future posi- 

 tion should be made known to these colonies." 

 He nevertheless admits that " the colonists, as a 



