That was the crux of it. George Brown would not have eastern extension at the cost of westward expansion. His faith in the North West and Canada’s future there was quite as strong as ever. The Globe had never ceased to run articles on the value of the North West beyond the Lakes, and now on the mounting dangers of American penetration into that region. Moreover, there was cause indeed to think that the Intercolonial scheme would either replace or still further postpone Canada’s acquisition of the Hudson’s Bay territories. The governing Coalition had shown little real concern – and, in French Canada, actual distaste – for North West expansion. Yet the Montreal business power associated with the government might contemplate the extension of its empire into the nearby Maritimes. More specifically, the huge bankrupt Grand Trunk enterprise was hopefully viewing the Intercolonial as a means of redeeming itself – at further substantial cost to the taxpayer.110
The new president of Grand Trunk, Edward Watkin, a clever, confident Englishman most appreciative of his own abilities, had recently come out to view the “organized mess” of the railway (his own term), and concluded that its one salvation lay in dazzling extensions to east and west, until it became the first transcontinental line linking Europe and the Orient across America.111 But the opening step would be eastward extension, through having the Intercolonial built jointly by the provinces with imperial support. Consequently, Brown still further refused to sanction the Intercolonial as essential to colonial development or defence. He cherished too many suspicions of costly Grand Trunk projects, and of the patriotic and plausible Mr. Watkin, who, as the Globe averred, “fanned the flame which is always kept burning on the railway altars in Halifax and Saint John [until] the conflagration has spread through three provinces”.112
Brown’s own concern for defence lay with measures more immediately needed to protect the long inland flank of Canada, that is, with the provision of an effective militia force to supplement the British regulars in the country.113 At present the colonial force existed largely on paper, the “sedentary militia” in which all able-bodied male inhabitants were enrolled, and which had met and drilled – more or less – once a year on the annual muster day. There was, besides, a small body of active militia with a little more claim to training, exemplified in the local volunteer companies that had been hurriedly embodied during the Trent crisis. But clearly the entire militia system needed overhauling, to provide for an efficient active force on a provincewide foundation. To that end, a militia commission had been named in January of 1862 by the new Governor-General, Lord Monck, who had replaced Sir Edmund Head shortly before the Trent affair. While it studied the problem in order to prepare for new militia legislation, the Canadian press and public concerned themselves with the drilling of the volunteer companies, and the proper principles of military organization.114
Brown recognized the importance of sound military organization. He saw that the early course of the American war had demonstrated the fallacy of believing that free citizens bearing arms made soldiers in themselves. That February he wrote thoughtfully to Luther Holton, who was far more uncritically pro-Northern than himself: “After all, have not the events of the past few months rather lowered your estimate of our neighbours? Has it not shown that there is something more needed to make up a great people than sharpness in business and agreeable social qualities? Has it not raised your estimate of the value of military power; of the faculty of commanding masses of men? Has it not proved the advantages of the people being taught to obey those placed in authority over them? I wish we had a chance to talk this over.”115
On the other hand, while he wanted a thoroughly trained militia, it was to be based on volunteering. “The volunteer system,” he asserted, “which has been attended with such wonderful success in Britain, is equally well adapted to Canada.”116 Furthermore, while provincials should look “to the Volunteer Force to meet the invader”, it was clear that the militia’s task would still be to assist, not to replace, the British regular.117 In short, Brown still foresaw only a limited peace-time military commitment for Canada, the provision of a select and well trained volunteer militia – all, in any case, that a small colonial population could afford.118
Conceiving as he did that any possible war with the United States would arise through the clash of American with imperial, not provincial, interests, there seemed little wrong with the view that the primary task of defending Canada remained with Great Britain.119 The colony was proud and happy to see the imperial bond retained. She would fight for it, accept her chances of war-time devastation. But she was still a colony, guided by a great power that controlled foreign policy and thus had the first responsibility for its consequences.120 In this, Brown’s concept of the imperial relationship, there was no desire to foist all obligations off on Britain, nor any wish for a larger scope for Canada in managing her own affairs. He simply took the situation as it was, while the colony was weak and the Mother Country strong, and assumed a division of the duties of colonial defence, with the Canadians clearly taking the secondary part. His assumptions might look reasonable enough. But they would be sharply tested before the Civil War was over.
6
A bill to reorganize the militia would come before the next session of parliament; and parliament was now called for March 20. Before that date, however, the discussion of defence measures had largely subsided, not to regain prominence until the Militia Bill was actually introduced. Tensions with the United States had slackened for the time being, and there were interesting domestic developments to capture Canadian attention once more.
The difficulties of the Cartier-Macdonald régime were now fully in the open. They centred in Upper Canada, where John A. Macdonald was again facing the need to reconstruct the western half of the ministry. Three of his ministers, Vankoughnet, Ross, and Morrison, were thoroughly used up and anxious to retire. Morrison, in fact, had not managed to get himself a seat in parliament in more than two years of trying. Really, Macdonald had gone through an amazing string of colleagues in keeping office since 1854. As the Globe unkindly put it, “Mr. Macdonald is a kind of political ogre who demands a virgin reputation every year at least, to satisfy his needs, and casts aside his victim when every shred of popularity and character has disappeared.”121 The Attorney-General’s critical problem, however, was not just the need for “fresh new eggs, after the old are sucked dry”.122 It was to deal with the embarrassing growth of sentiment for representation by population among his own Conservative following.
Macdonald himself still wholly rejected the principle, almost as strenuously as his Lower Canadian associates in government; but increasingly his own party was dividing on the issue. To hold it together, he might well have to take pledged advocates of rep by pop into the cabinet, dangerous as that would seem to the taut and suspicious Bleus of Lower Canada. If he did not do so, John Hillyard Cameron might gain control of the rep-by-pop Conservatives: Cameron, the powerful right-wing Tory who had once been his closest rival for party leadership, and who had now returned to politics and become Orange Grand Master besides. The result could well be a fatal split in Conservatism, and the consequent fall of the Liberal-Conservative Coalition that had ruled virtually without a break for the past eight years.
Ever since the previous summer’s elections the western government leader had faced this problem, but delayed as long as he dared. Now, as parliament assembled in Quebec, and there were still no new ministers, he could procrastinate no longer. While the Globe hopefully announced that he was at Bull Run – or perhaps Waterloo – Macdonald made his changes.123 Vankoughnet, Morrison, and Ross readily resigned, the first two going to their just reward, the judicial bench, the third to spend more time at his Grand Trunk offices as president of the railway’s Canadian board. And three rep-by-pop Conservatives were sworn in: John Carling, James Patton, and John Beverley Robinson. Yet, as Macdonald assured the House, this did not involve a change in government policy. Representation by population remained an open question for all to vote on as they would. In short, he was on a tight-rope, but still had hopes of walking it.
The Reformers naturally