so ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



that exist throughout Canada we have further evidence of the difficulties 

 with which a government has to contend in striving to achieve the unity 

 and security of this widely extended confederation. "When the Canadian 

 provinces were united, in 1840, the French Canadians were restive and 

 uncertain of their future. The Act of Union was considered by many of 

 them as an attempt to make them subservient to British influences. The 

 elimination of their language from legislative records was to them a great 

 grievance, because it was in their opinion, a clear evidence of the spirit 

 which lay at the basis of the union. As a matter of fact, however, the 

 Union Act was a measure which, from the very outset, gave to Lower 

 Canada a political superiority in the government of the whole country. 

 The representation of the two provinces was equal in the Assemblj', but 

 the greater unity that distinguished the French Canadians in all matters 

 that might affect their political power, or their provincial interests, natur- 

 ally enabled them to dominate the I"'nglish parties, divided among them- 

 selves on so many political issues. The French language was soon 

 restored to its old place and step by step all the principles that the popu- 

 lar party of Lower Canada had been fighting for previous to 1840 were 

 granted — even an elective legislative council — under the new regime. 

 The consequence was that French Canada eventually recognized its 

 power, and its people forgot their old grievances and were ready to sus- 

 tain the Union into which they had entered with doubt and apprehen- 

 sion. It was the English speaking people of the West that now raised 

 the clamour against French domination, when the representation 

 granted in 1840 did not do justice to the increase of population in Upper 

 Canada, where, since that year, the progress had been more rapid than in 

 the French section. The consequence was that the two provinces, united . 

 in law, were practically divided on the floor of parliament and govern- 

 ment, at last, became almost impossible from the division of parties and 

 the controlling influence of French Canada, alwaj^s determined to yield 

 nothing to the cry from the upper province that would destroy the 

 equality of representation. The solution of the difficulties, arising, it will 

 be seen, from national antagonism, was found in a federal union, under 

 which Lower Canada obtained a supreme control over the provincial 

 matters in which she has an immediate interest and at the same time has 

 been able to exercise great influence in national affairs by means of her 

 large representation in the Dominion parliament. The results of the 

 political changes, which have occurred since the days of Lord Durham, 

 have been very different from what he hoped would be the case when he 

 wrote his famous report, throughout which there is a strong desii-e to 

 diminish French Canadian influence and gradually absorb the French 

 Canadian nationality in an English speaking people. In Lord Durham's 

 opinion, "the first and steady purpose of the British Government should 

 " be to establish an English population, with English laws and language. 



