this interest, and it began to dawn upon the House of Commons that a bad Colonial policy might mean bad Budgets. The first sign of this feeling was given by Mr. Bailie, who in February brought forward a motion for an inquiry into the conduct of the Governments of Ceylon and Guiana. His attack was general as well as particular. In brief, he declared that the Colonial Office oppressed the Colonies and wasted their revenues in extravagant expenditure, and he urged that the time had come for Colonial autonomy. Lord Torrington's fiscal eccentricities had driven Ceylon to rebellion, which had been suppressed with shocking barbarity. The Colonial Office-in other words, Lord Grey-by opposing financial reforms in Demerara, had rendered it discontented. A feeble Amendment, moved by Mr. Ricardo, extending the scope of the proposed investigation into the means by which the Colonies might best meet the difficulties of the transition from Protection to Free Trade, was all the opposition Mr. Bailie encountered. The attempt to defend the financial maladministration of the Colonies by declaring that it was a corollary of Free Trade failed, and Mr. Bailie's Committee was appointed. Just before Parliament was prorogued, Mr. Hume drew the attention of the House to the evidence it had then accumulated as to Guiana, and moved that the expenditure of the Colony be reduced, and some measure of autonomy granted to it. The fault with the administration of Demerara was this:-for ten years it had been carried on extravagantly in direct opposition to the views of the elected representatives of the Colonists, who were for a policy of financial retrenchment. The motion was negatived, but the debate on it did good. It is perhaps right to say that the agitation for retrenchment in these Colonies was considerably stimulated by the abolition of Protection. Free Trade cut down the profits of the planters. They in turn angrily demanded that the salaries of Colonial officials should also be docked. Early in May the Queen was grievously annoyed to learn that the turbulent Canadians were again threatening to rebel. Parliament, therefore, soon found itself discussing a Canadian question. After the rebellion in Canada, which ended in 1838, a Bill was passed giving compensation to loyal sufferers in Upper Canada. A similar measure was demanded for Lower Canada-the French province-which had been the seat of the insurrection. As it was argued that much, if not most, of the compensation would find its way into rebel hands, the claim was resisted by "the British Party" in the province. But in 1848 the Ministry-a Tory, or "British" Ministry-was ejected. The Governor-General (Lord Elgin) then formed another Cabinet out of the "French Party," who, of course, brought in and passed an Indemnity Bill for the Lower Province. When Lord Elgin went to the House of Assembly, in Montreal, on the 25th of April, 1849, to give this Bill his sanction, the "British" mob rose in its wrath, and stoned him as he was leaving the building. They then set fire to the House of Assembly itself, and burned it to the ground in a frenzy of loyalty to British 1849.] DISAFFECTION IN CANADA. 383 interests. Troops were promptly called out, and the disaffected accordingly adopted the less violent course of petitioning the Queen to recall Lord Elgin and veto the obnoxious Bill. The "British Party" gradually cooled down, but throughout the year they remained very sulky, vainly endeavouring to persuade themselves to secede to the United States. The condition of the Colony was, in truth, not such as to stimulate its loyalty. It had lost the benefit which it had enjoyed from privileged access to a protected English market. Its finances were disordered. Its stagnation and decay were in startling contrast to the prosperity and progress of the New England States of the American Republic. The form of its provincial Government was cumbrous, inciting to political feuds; and then-worst of all-in the mother country, Manchester Radicals persistently incited the Canadians to secede, by promulgating the doctrine that British Colonies not only benefited by independence, but were, whilst in the dependent state, a source of trouble and expense to the English taxpayer. The whole question came before the House of Commons more than once. On the 14th of June the Rebellion Losses Bill was fiercely attacked by Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons as a measure for rewarding rebels. Some years afterwards Mr. Gladstone made a kind of apology for his onslaught; but even then he quite misunderstood the true meaning and bearing of Lord Elgin's policy.* Mr. Herries moved an Address calling on the Queen to veto the Bill. For two nights it was attacked; but Sir Robert Peel's intervention routed the opposition, for he pointed out that the measure could not possibly give compensation, as Mr. Gladstone alleged, to any one who was shown to be a rebel, and that it was only, as Lord Elgin said, the logical sequence of other measures of the sort, which had been passed without opposition. His strongest point, however, was that to reject the Bill would be taken as an insult to the Colony, and an encroachment on its right of self-government. Mr. Herries lost his motion by a majority of 141. In the House of Lords, however, the attack was renewed by Lord Brougham, and but for the timely aid of three proxies the Government would have been beaten by him. The curious thing to note is the calmative influence of this firm and resolute attitude of the Government and Parliament on the Colony. The Tory Party in Canada up till then had strained every effort, Lord Elgin writes in one of his letters, to drive him to a coup d'état. They had breathed nothing but rebellion and slaughter for months. The moment Parliament gently snubbed them, however, they were quieted as if by magic, and their organs began to write articles declaiming against the practice of abusing the French, with whom, in the long-run, the Tory or English Party were bound to live in amity. During this crisis nothing could be worthier of the occasion than the *Memoir of James, eighth Earl of Elgin, edited by Theodore Walrond, with a Preface by A. P. Stanley, Chap. IV., pp. 70 et seq. courage, the coolness, the dignity, and resolute forbearance of Lord Elgin. As he says in one of his letters, he stood literally alone. He was accused of cowardice because he did not quench the revolt in blood; and even Lord John Russell and Lord Grey, though they defended him, thought the logic of the case was against him. He was, they argued, either right or wrong. If the latter, he ought to be recalled; if the former, he ought to avenge by force of arms the insult offered to the Queen in his person. But Elgin's policy was justified by the result. This was that 700,000 rebellious French subjects of the Queen were reconciled to her Government, not because they were bribed by compensation grants, for no actual rebel got any, but because they had a striking proof given to them that to "be just and fear not" was the keynote of the British Governor-General's policy and administration. Mr. Roebuck and Emigration-Self-Government and the Colonies-Unsympathetic Whig Policy-Radicals and the Colonial Office-The Peelites and Hudson's Bay Company-Financial Reform-Mr. Cobden at Variance with Mr. Bright-Combined Agitators-The Demand for Retrenchment-Trade and the FlagTories and Taxes-A reductio ad absurdum-A Raid on a Surplus-International Arbitration-Parliamentary Reform-Parliament and the Jews-The Tories oppose the Alteration of the Parliamentary OathEpiscopal Prejudice-Tory Obstructionists-An Ordnance Department Scandal-Mr. Delane's Attacks on Lord Palmerston in the Times-The Queen Remonstrates against Lord Palmerston's Recklessness-An Anti-Palmerstonian Cabal-Lady Palmerston's Intrigues-Lord Brougham Betrays the Cabal-Palmerston's Victory-Rome and France-The Second War-The Disaster of Chillianwalla-Indignation of the CountryLord Gough's Recall-Napier to the Rescue-The East India Directors Oppose Napier's AppointmentThe Convict War at the Cape-Boycotting the Governor. ANOTHER notable event in the Colonial history of 1849 was the introduction by Mr. Roebuck, on the 14th of May, of a Bill for the better government of the Colonies. The debate on this measure brought vividly before the minds of thoughtful men the folly upon which our step-motherly treatment of the Colonies was based. 66 Emigration by itself," exclaimed Mr. Roebuck, "is misery;" and yet the idea of colonisation which prevailed at the Colonial Office was simply to transport as many people as possible to distant wilds, utterly regardless of their ultimate fate. Why should we not introduce something like system, asked Mr. Roebuck, into our Colonial policy, and recognise the fact that it was now not tribute, but trade that we might expect to get |