sprang up, eager to press forward
at a swifter pace.

In Canada West the 'Clear Grit' party, founded by Radicals such as John
Rolph, Peter Perry, and William M'Dougall, and later {21} under the
leadership of George Brown, declared war to the knife on all forms of
special privilege. Denominational privilege, whether the claim of
Anglicans to clergy reserves, or of Roman Catholics to separate schools
in Canada West and to ecclesiastical supremacy above the civil law in
Canada East; class privilege, like the claim of the seigneurs to feudal
dues and powers; sectional privilege, such as it was asserted Canada
East enjoyed in having half the members in the Union parliament though
her population had ceased to be anything like half--all these Brown
attacked with tremendous energy, if not always with fairness and
judgment.

In Canada East the _Rouges_ carried on a similar but far more hopeless
fight. The brilliant group of young men who formed the nucleus of this
party, Dorion, Doutre, Daoust, Papin, Fournier, Laberge, Letellier,
Laflamme, Geoffrion, found a stimulus in the struggle which democratic
Europe was waging in 1848, and a leader in Papineau. The great
agitator had come back from exile in Paris to find a country that knew
not Joseph, to find former lieutenants who now thought they could lead,
and a province where the majority had wearied of the old cries of New
France and were {22} suspicious of the new doctrines of Old France. He
threw himself into violent but futile opposition to LaFontaine and
rallied these fiery young crusaders about him. In _L'Avenir_, and
later in _Le Pays_, they tilted against real and imaginary ogres, and
the hustings of Quebec rang with their eloquence. Their demands were
most sweeping and heterogeneous. They called for a vigorous policy of
colonization and of instruction and experiment in agriculture; for
simplification of judicial procedure and the forms of government; for
the election, on the American plan, of administrative as well as
legislative authorities; for annual parliaments; for increased powers
of local government; for universal suffrage; for the abolition of
clergy reserves, seigneurial tenure, and church tithes; and for the
repeal of the Union. They joined the disgruntled Tories of their
province in demanding, for very different reasons, annexation to the
United States. Many of these demands have been approved, some have
been disapproved, by time. Right or wrong, th