nadas. He
was quite conscious that, if the province was to remain a contented
portion of the British empire, it could be best done by giving full
play to the principles of self-government among both nationalities who
had been so long struggling to obtain the application of the
parliamentary system of England in the fullest sense to the operation
of their own internal affairs, and by giving to the industrial and
commercial classes adequate compensation for the great losses which
they had sustained by the sudden abolition of the privileges which
England had so long extended to Canadian products--notably, flour,
wheat and lumber--in the British market.

Lord Elgin knew perfectly well that, while this discontent existed,
the party which favoured annexation would not fail to find sympathy
and encouragement in the neighbouring republic. He recalled the fact
that both Papineau and Mackenzie, after the outbreak of their abortive
rebellion, had many abettors across the border, as the infamous raids
into Canada clearly proved. Many people in the United States, no
doubt, saw some analogy between the grievances of Canadians and those
which had led to the American revolution. "The mass of the American
people," said Lord Durham, "had judged of the quarrel from a distance;
they had been obliged to form their judgment on the apparent grounds
of the controversy; and were thus deceived, as all those are apt to be
who judge under such circumstances, and on such grounds. The contest
bore some resemblance to that great struggle of their own forefathers,
which they regard with the highest pride. Like that, they believed it
to be the contest of a colony against the empire, whose misconduct
alienated their own country; they considered it to be a contest
undertaken by a people professing to seek independence of distant
control, and extension of popular privileges." More than that, the
striking contrast which was presented between Canada and the United
States "in respect to every sign of productive industry, increasing
wealth, and progressive civilization" was considered by the people of
the latter country to be among the results of the absence of a
political system which would give expansion to the energies of the
colonists and make them self-reliant in every sense. Lord Durham's
picture of the condition of things in 1838-9 was very painful to
Canadians, although it was truthful in every particular. "On the
British side of the line," he wrote,