PARTIES IN MONTREAL. 319 



4. Then partly Interfering and partly coinciding with 

 these are the Radical and Conservative political parties. 



5. The religious parties — the Protestant against the 

 Roman Catholic. 



6. Also in Montreal, as a seat of commerce, there are 

 the agricultural and commercial parties ; among whom 

 the free-trade movement, as with us, but especially in 

 its relations to timber, and to reciprocity with the States, 

 has been a great bone of contention. It is the latter of 

 these parties which has mainly supported the Annexation 

 movement. 



7. And, lastly, city and municipal affairs have formed 

 parties purely local, whose feelings on these matters 

 complicate the other differences. 



In these numerous parties, among a small population 

 of 50,000, just large enough to furnish materials for 

 giving a certain degree of Importance and consistency 

 to each, without affording a marked preponderance to 

 any, there are surely abundant materials for easy dis- 

 order and sudden excitement. And if it be farther the 

 case, as I was generally Informed — correctly, as I should 

 judge from my own limited experience — that In Montreal 

 all these parties are very bitter against each other on 

 occasions of excitement, and^ even In ordinary times, 

 co-operate httle with each other, the wonder will be 

 rather that the city should have remained so long quiet, 

 than that a single boiling over should have satisfied a 

 perpetually simmering population. 



It must be a very angelic Government, indeed, that 

 could please so divided a people, a very talented one 

 that could persuade, and a very powerful one that could 

 restrain or control them. Military men, like other 

 leeches, are naturally partial to their own mode of cure, 

 and blame the Government for want of energy and deci- 

 sion in not employing the strong arm to repress them 

 during the late disturbances. But people at home will 



