afterwards, the expenditure under this act had reached to about $1,000,000; not a large sum, certainly, for the valuable results achieved. Several other important measures were also passed during this session. The Grand Trunk Railway Act was amended, a new Customs Tariff adopted, the Canada Ocean Steamship Company incorporated, and effect given to the Reciprocity Treaty. On the 18th of December, the necessary legislation having all been completed, Parliament was adjourned with the usual formalities to the 23d of the ensuing February. On the following day, Lord Elgin, who had committed the fatal mistake of identifying himself too closely with one of the political parties of the country, resigned a government so fruitful of personal humiliation to himself, and at once proceeded home. The tide of public opinion had again set strongly in his favour, but his memories of Canada were laden with too many indignities to render a longer residence in it either pleasant or desirable. No doubt, also, he anticipated other employment from the Imperial Government. After his subsequent mission to Japan and China, he closed a great and useful existence in the Governor-Generalship of India, the highest post in the gift of the British Crown, and became another distinguished victim to a climate so fatal to European life. Mr Hincks remained in Canada but a few months after the departure of Lord Elgin. He had already outlived his once great popularity; and the union of his immediate followers with the Conservatives, and the charges of corruption against himself, so thoroughly alienated the bulk of the Reform party of Upper Canada, that his political influence must have been destroyed for all time to come. In England, Lord Elgin no doubt stood his friend; and the Palmerston administration, not unmindful of his services, appointed him to the Governorship of the Windward West India Islands; and, in addition, solaced him for the loss of his Canadian influence by the honour of knighthood.

CHAPTER XXV.

SIR

THE GOVERNMENT OF SIR EDMUND W. HEAD.

1855.

IR EDMUND W. HEAD, appointed at the ripe age of fifty years as the successor of Lord Elgin, was descended from an ancient and honourable English family of Kent. As a gentleman-commoner of Oriel College, Oxford, he had distinguished himself for a close application to philosophy and rhetoric, passed finally a brilliant examination, was almost immediately afterwards elected to a fellowship, and received the appointment of tutor to Mereton College. A clever article from his pen in the Foreign Quarterly Review introduced him to the notice of the Marquis of Lansdowne; and by whom, shortly afterwards, he was created an assistant poor-law commissioner, at a salary of £1000 a year. In this office Sir Edmund acquitted himself so well, that a change in the administration only tended to advance his interests; and Sir James Graham promoted him to be chief commissioner, and doubled his remuneration. But the assaults of a portion of the London press, and the dissatisfaction of the public with the new Poor-Law Act, which he had mainly framed, compelled his retirement from office, to be appointed Governor of New Brunswick, and to be elevated, subsequently, to the more important position of Governor-General of British North America. Such, then, was the man, under whose auspices the adjourned session of Parliament was opened on the 23d of February. During the recess, several changes had taken place in the Lower Canadian section of the ministry. Morin had resigned the commissionership of Crown Lands, to be succeeded by Joseph Cauchon, George E. Cartier had replaced Chaveau as Provincial Secretary, and Chabot made way for Lemieux in the department of Public Works. But the Coalition Cabinet, nevertheless, still held the reins of power firmly in their hands; and throughout the session the opposition continued in a large minority on all important questions.

On the 27th, a despatch from the Colonial Secretary to the Governor-General, which gave evidence of the kindly spirit that now subsisted between the mother-country and her cis-Atlantic daughter, was laid before the House. It acknowledged the receipt of the cordial congratulations of the Parliament of Canada on the victory gained by British and French arms on the heights of the Alma, and of two drafts of £10,000 sterling each, voted towards the relief of the widows of the soldiers and sailors of both nations slain in the war. Nor was this spirit of sympathy with the motherland in her difficulty restricted to the Parliament of this country. It produced the subscriptions, for the same benevolent purpose, of the cities and towns throughout the land, and otherwise evoked the deepened feelings of natural affection in the hearts of its people.

The session terminated on the 30th of May, after the unusual number of two hundred and fifty-one bills had been enacted. A large and solid majority had enabled the ministry to transact a very great amount of business. The opposition, still led by Mr Brown, had not improved its position by the occurrences of the session; and, intensely disliked as its leader was by the majority of the French Canadians, it would now seem as if the Coalition Cabinet was destined to have a long lease of power. The Governor-General's closing speech supplied a historical retrospect of value. He alluded to the Clergy Reserves Act of the preceding session, as being based on liberal principles, and respecting individual rights; to the Seignoria! Tenure Act, as effecting great changes, with some individual hardship, but establishing Canada as the only country in the world where the feudal system had expired without violence and revolution, and to the benefits already arising from the operations of the Reciprocity Treaty. Great issues had, indeed, been for ever disposed of; his Excellency had no public evils of magnitude to dilate upon; and, secure in the most ample guarantees of their rights, the people of Canada could now apply themselves, without let or hindrance, to the full development of their material prosperity. A brief paragraph in the speech set forth, that a measure, passed during the session, had provided for the improved organisation of the militia and volunteers, and this was the first step taken towards the creation of a volunteer force in Canada. Hitherto, in time of peace, the militia was simply a paper organisation, and the regular troops were alone available in the event of any sudden emergency. But the new Militia Act produced a most important change for the better in this respect, and ultimately led to the formation of well-drilled and efficiently-equipped volunteer corps throughout the whole of

Canada; an element of additional security in time of peace, and an admirable nucleus for a militia army in the event of war.

The year 1855 may be regarded as constituting a fresh landmark in the commercial annals of Canada. The general policy of the Peel administration, which culminated in the repeal of the Corn Laws, had terminated the protective and discriminative Home and Colonial system of trade. Up to that period the commercial legislation of Canada had been made to harmonise, as far as possible, with the imperial practice. But, left to shift for herself as best she could, the Legislature abolished in 1848 the differential duties in favour of direct trade with Great Britain; and the repeal of the imperial Navigation Laws, in 1849, still further loosened the commercial bonds between Canada and the mother-country. As a necessary consequence, the trade policy of the colony again became the reflex of that of the parent land; and the Reciprocity Treaty was the copingstone of a system, inaugurated six years before, which opened wide the portals of the Canadian market on equal terms to all the world, and commenced a new and more enlightened era of commercial intercourse. With the close of 1854, the old trade period may be said to have finally terminated. During that year the imports into Canada had amounted to $40,529,325, on which, at an average rate of twelve per cent., the duty collected was $4,900,769, while the exports were only $23,019,190. The total public revenue from all sources was $6,088, 110, against an expenditure of $4,171,941, thus leaving a large surplus, and which led, in 1855, to the reduction of the Customs Tariff to ten per cent. On the other hand, the legislation of the three preceding years had increased the public debt by $21,000,00 and which debt, at the beginning of 1855, had swelled to $38,851,833. The greater portion of the new debt had been contracted for the Grand Trunk and other railways, of which three hundred and thirty miles had now been opened, despite the severe monetary pressure mainly resulting from the Crimean war. Towards the close of the summer the Grand Trunk Railway had been completed to Brockville, one hundred and twenty miles above Montreal, and some of the piers of the Victoria Bridge had also been constructed. The rejoicings for the railway opening followed close upon those for the Fall of Sebastopol-an occurrence which illuminated almost every city and town from Gaspe to Goderich.

The commencement of the new year brought with it no event of importance to record. Railway matters had not yet begun 1856. to seriously vex the public mind; and beyond a very slight agitation relative to making the Legislative Council elective, and the

seat of government question, no political excitement whatever existed. From the general tone of the Reform press, however, it was quite evident that the feeling of antagonism to Sir Allan M'Nab's government was on the increase. It was too liberal and progressive to suit the Family Compact wing of the Conservative party, but not sufficiently extreme to meet the views of that portion of the Reform party which acknowledged the leadership of Mr George Brown. This gentleman, destined at a more recent period to fill a very prominent position in this country, was born in Scotland, at the city of Edinburgh, in 1821. In 1838 his family emigrated to New York, and where his father, Mr Peter Brown, a man of large general information and excellent abilities, commenced the mercantile business. But his success not being commensurate with his expectations, he entered, in 1842, upon the career of a public journalist, and issued a weekly newspaper, intensely Anglo-Saxon in every respect, called the British Chronicle. Its proposed field of operations was already, however, too completely filled by the Albion; so the Chronicle only lived for the brief space of eighteen months. In 1843 the family removed to Toronto, and where Mr George Brown became the publisher, in the interests of the Free Church Presbyterians, of a weekly newspaper termed the Banner. In 1844 the publication of this journal was relinquished for that of the Globe, a newspaper devoted to Reform, politics, general news, and literature, and which very speedily attained to a most influential position. 1849 he was appointed, by the Baldwin-Lafontaine ministry, as a commissioner to investigate certain alleged abuses in the Provincial Penitentiary, a trust he discharged with much ability and benefit to the country. In December 1851, he was first elected to the Legislature, as member for the county of Kent, and his unquestionably great abilities soon raised him to a conspicuous position.

A man of this stamp, and whose personal exertions in behalf of his party were aided by the great influence of the leading Reform journal of Upper Canada, could not be otherwise than a most formidable opponent. Gifted with a clear and vigorous intellect, possessed of habits of great industry, and of the most indomitable perseverance, his information extended over every branch of the public service, and eminently fitted him for the position of a partisan leader and successful agitator. It is a somewhat singular circumstance that as regards the latter capacity, this country should be so much indebted to natives of Scotland, instead of to its more mercurial citizens of Irish origin. The eccentric Gourlay effected, indirectly, no small amount of good for Canada; his mantle fell