iple was laid
down as a binding rule. Its purport was that no Ministry should be
held to possess the confidence of parliament unless it could command a
majority from both the French and the English sections of Canada. The
rule speedily proved unworkable in practice. The Macdonald-Sicotte
Government was not of long duration. It had many difficulties to
contend with. A reconstruction of the Cabinet in May 1863 was followed
by a general election. This, however, did not improve matters for the
Government. The parties in the new House were almost equally divided.
The Ministry lingered on a few months, and, without waiting for a
formal vote of no confidence, at last resigned on March 21, 1864.

[Illustration: Sir Etienne Pascal Tache. From a portrait in the John
Ross Robertson Collection, Toronto Public Library]

The Liberal-Conservatives came back to office, though not to power,
under Sir Etienne Tache, who had received the honour of knighthood
since last we heard of him. In less than three months his Government
met defeat by a majority of two votes in the Assembly. Thus within
three years four Ministries had been defeated, and two general
elections had {71} failed to break the deadlock which threatened to
make government impossible in Canada.

The man responsible above all others for this deplorable state of
things was he who for years past had not ceased in the columns of his
paper and from his place in parliament to set one section of Canada
against the other; who laboured to stir up racial and religious strife;
who habitually gave to the people of Upper Canada a distorted view of
the national characteristics and the religious belief of their
fellow-countrymen in Lower Canada. The result was that the Union
formed only twenty-three years before, the Union about which such high
hopes had been entertained, was on the point of breaking up. The
actual _impasse_ which had now been reached seems to have opened George
Brown's eyes to the effects of his course, and to have convinced him
that the time had arrived when a cessation of the old feuds was
absolutely necessary to the carrying on of the queen's government in
Canada. Impelled by a sense of patriotism and, we may well believe, at
the expense of his personal feelings, he now joined hands with
Macdonald and Cartier for the purpose of carrying the great scheme of
Confederation. This, and this alone, promised deliverance {72} from
the unhappy deadlock that impe