vernment of Canada is to be found in the formation of two or more
local governments to which shall be committed the control of all matters
of a local and sectional character, and some general authority charged
with such matters as are necessarily common to both sections of the
provinces"--language almost identical with that used by the Quebec
convention six years later in one of its resolutions with respect to the
larger scheme of federation. Mr. George Brown brought this scheme before
the assembly in 1860, but it was rejected by a large majority. At this
time constitutional and political difficulties of a serious nature had
arisen between the French and English speaking sections of the united
Canadian provinces. A large and influential party in Upper Canada had
become deeply dissatisfied with the conditions of the union of 1840,
which maintained equality of representation to the two provinces when
statistics clearly showed that the western section exceeded French
Canada both in population and wealth.

A demand was persistently and even fiercely made at times for such a
readjustment of the representation in the assembly as would do full
justice to the more populous and richer province. The French Canadian
leaders resented this demand as an attempt to violate the terms on which
they were brought into the union, and as calculated, and indeed
intended, to place them in a position of inferiority to the people of a
province where such fierce and unjust attacks were systematically made
on their language, religion, and institutions generally. With much
justice they pressed the fact that at the commencement of, and for some
years subsequent to, the union, the French Canadians were numerically in
the majority, and yet had no larger representation in the assembly than
the inhabitants of the upper province, then inferior in population. Mr.
George Brown, who had under his control a powerful newspaper, the
_Globe_, of Toronto, was remarkable for his power of invective and his
tenacity of purpose, and he made persistent and violent attacks upon the
conditions of the union, and upon the French and English Conservatives,
who were not willing to violate a solemn contract.

The difficulties between the Canadian provinces at last became so
intensified by the public opinion created by Mr. Brown in Upper Canada
in favour of representation by population, that good and stable
government was no longer possible on account of the close division