The House had no less missed him. It had been a dull, inconsequential sitting. One Liberal comrade wrote to him from Quebec: “Your absence has in a party sense been useful. It has demonstrated to all that you are a political necessity, and not a ‘governmental impossibility’! Even ministerialists admit that the House is without interest when it is without Brown.”27 Representation by population had certainly been debated; and while it had been lost, 67 to 49, the wholly Upper Canadian vote supporting it had included a number of Conservatives. Hence the government had wisely declared that the principle was not a “cabinet question”, thus allowing their followers to go two ways upon it, and avoiding for themselves the consequences of a nasty split. But in the absence of the senior member for Toronto no one had effectively exploited the situation. In fact, the best speech on rep by pop was made by Premier Cartier, a five-hour oration that decisively and defiantly rejected it, despite Upper Canada’s now admitted lead of more than a quarter of a million people. Cartier condemned the proposal utterly, both as principle and practice, declaring in one fervent passage that “the codfish of Gaspé Bay should also be represented, as well as the 250,000 Clear Grits of Western Canada”:28 a highly quotable remark that did not endear him to Upper Canadian Liberals, though it well might to their newspaper editors.
Otherwise, the session mainly showed the ineptitude of the Reform opposition, once more demonstrating that if some of the party could not do with Brown, none could do without him. They were an oddly uncertain group, deprived of the man they had come so greatly to rely on. William McDougall, who was still writing for the Globe, when he could, reported back to the invalid in Toronto to reveal the indecision and weakness of the rather chastened bunch of Grits in parliament.29 “There is no one on our side,” he lamented, “who will really go into a fight of this kind with vigour and skill. Mowat is too wishy-washy and besides is friendly to John A. personally. Connor might be inclined to work to pay him off for his attack … but he is not well posted and too indolent.…”30 Then there was the lack of leadership: “I have tried to push out Mowat, but he is afraid – wants the leadership put to commission.” Accordingly, a “sort of committee of safety” of four or five had been recommended, though McDougall personally preferred to accept Dorion as nominal leader.31
In any case, Michael Foley was out of the running, although by a good speech on the address he had “re-established himself somewhat in the confidence of the party”. There was still the suspicion that he would intrigue with the unpredictable Sandfield Macdonald – besides a problem of his recurrent drinking bouts.32 Mowat also wrote, reporting that Foley’s drinking had grown “very bad”, adding a bit piously: “Poor fellow, he is always so mortified afterwards.”33
Still further, there was no effective critic of the ministry’s vulnerable financial policies; in Brown’s absence, Finance Minister Galt would have it all his own way. The party, said McDougall dolefully, had “no man of commercial training combined with political knowledge and speaking talent, but yourself”.34 If there were men like William Howland with the requisite business background, they lacked force in talking to the House; Holton would have been invaluable, but was still out of parliament – and so on.35 The dismal picture might have given Brown the satisfaction of seeing how much he was needed; but it was small comfort for him, fretting helplessly in Toronto, to watch the whole session being thrown away.
And then, early in June, parliament was dissolved and a general election called. Reformers wanted George Brown; his Toronto constituency besought him to run again. He would have to go into the battle weak and unready as he was, with a party that he had not been able to pull together again, and, indeed, that had never fully recovered from the defeats and dissensions of the previous year. He had seldom entered an election campaign under less favourable auspices.
On June 7, the Toronto Reform Association called a general meeting in the Mechanics’ Institute to nominate candidates for the city’s two parliamentary seats, now denominated East Toronto and West Toronto.36 The full turn-out that packed the lecture room that night included such local party notables as McDougall, Howland, and Adam Wilson, the member for North York and former mayor who had been asked to stand for West Toronto. And there was also the city’s Reform representative in the late parliament, George Brown, there to be nominated for the constituency of East Toronto. As he rose to speak in this first public appearance since his illness, its mark was plain upon him. There was no dramatic change; his tall, erect figure had not noticeably wasted, his red-brown hair had not turned grey, his deep voice had lost none of its resonance. Yet he was obviously weak – “I doubt if my physicians approve of my being here tonight,” he observed, explaining that he would not talk long in order to save his strength.37 Above all, his speech did not climb and soar, and at the end he apologized for a lame performance. He also made clear that it was obligation, not enthusiasm, that impelled him. This was surely not the old Brown.
“With perfect frankness and sincerity,” he said, “were I at liberty to follow my own inclination at this moment, I would not be a candidate for election on the present occasion. After twenty years of unremitting toil I feel the preservation of my health demands a period of relaxation. And most gladly would I now retire from parliamentary life – at least for a season. But I feel in this I cannot be my own master. Political connections and ties have grown up around me which I cannot sever in a day. And there are responsibilities which, when public men assume them, must not be shrunk from – at any sacrifice to themselves. At such a moment I cannot think it would be right in me to withdraw from the good cause any service I can render it.”38 It was a lofty declaration that brought cheers; but it was scarcely in the spirit that wins elections.
The candidate went off to the country for a few more days of rest before beginning his campaign, and returned on June 17 to speak to the largest indoor political meeting yet held in Toronto, before a Liberal audience of one thousand in St. Lawrence Hall. Mowat and Connor spoke also, but the chief effort was Brown’s. This time there was nothing faltering or resigned about him, as he held forth on the population question and the wrongs done Upper Canada. She had 60,000 more inhabitants than Lower Canada in 1851, he proclaimed, had waited ten years under eastern domination, now had five times that lead – and still was denied justice! Were 300,000 westerners to remain disfranchised – because of the treachery of John A. Macdonald and his clique?39 It was all rapturously received. In fact, Brown’s old vitality seemed to come flooding back that evening, stirred as he was by the big, excited audience.
Just two nights later he was back at the hall again, to address a very different meeting in company with his Conservative opponent in the election, John Crawford.40 It was a gathering of both parties, the kind of situation made for trouble. Reformers filled the back of the main floor and the gallery, but in the front and around the platform sat a solid phalanx of Conservatives, a band of some thirty to forty rowdies noisily prominent among them. As soon as Mayor Bowes had opened the proceedings, the meeting began to fall apart. Amid hoots and catcalls, a shaky Mr. Allan tried stumblingly to introduce George Brown – then had his notes snatched away by Tories clambering onto the platform. The two candidates came forward; a wild contest of cheers and jeers filled the hall. Allan was still trying, and the Mayor was already calling frantically for an adjournment, when the funloving roughs still on the platform tried to push Brown off as he arrived. He fought back; more of them rushed up; over went the Mayor’s table; down to the reporters’ desk below crashed Brown; while Grits howling vengeance came racing down the aisles.
Highland blood up, torn coat flapping fiercely, Brown led a Liberal charge that almost reconquered the platform. But out stepped Constable Jones of the Grand Trunk, and with a huge push tumbled them all back to the floor. For good measure his friend Murphy swung at Brown’s head with a cudgel, but Brown had rammed his hat on in the first attack and the blow only smashed a good Victorian top-hat – a useful safety helmet for the politics of the day. At this point the police arrived, and the Mayor managed to convince the candidates that it was useless to go on. The rival forces marched out, the Reformers chanting, “On to the Globe!” There on the steps of the office their battered leader addressed them, ruined hat, ripped coat and all. He appeared “considerably