ioo THE ROARING FORTIES 



becoming a rather common feature of debate. 

 Ultra Radicals like Roebuck and Hume, and 

 less violent ones like Brougham, contended that 

 the connection of the Canadas with Great 

 Britain either already was, or in the near fu 

 ture would be, irrational and adverse to the 

 true interests of both parties. Cobden and his 

 anti-Corn-Law followers assailed, in the name of 

 economic and political liberty, the system under 

 which, for the sake of imperial glory, the nat 

 ural law of freedom in trade and navigation 

 was set at naught. Lord Durham himself had 

 been identified with the Radicals, but on the 

 question of colonies he did not join the ultras. 

 The burden of his contention in his great report 

 was, that the North American provinces should 

 be so administered as to grow into a unified 

 nationality, attached to the British Empire, 

 and sharing by give and take in the civilization 

 and progress of which that empire was the 

 home. 



Under an act of Parliament that went into 

 effect in 1841 a new constitution for Canada 

 became operative. It joined the two provinces 

 in a legislative union, with many features that 

 Lord Durham had recommended. The new 

 system did not bring at once the tranquillity 



