trumentality of Sir Charles
Bagot. Mr. Baldwin was a statesman whose greatest desire was the
success of responsible government without a single reservation. Mr.
LaFontaine was a French Canadian who had wisely recognized the
necessity of accepting the union he had at first opposed, and of
making responsible government an instrument for the advancement of the
interests of his compatriots and of bringing them into unison with all
nationalities for the promotion of the common good. The other
prominent French Canadian in the ministry was Mr. A.N. Morin, who
possessed the confidence and respect of his people, but was wanting in
the energy and ability to initiate and press public measures which his
leader possessed.

The new administration had not been long in office when the
governor-general fell a victim to an attack of dropsy, complicated by
heart disease, and was succeeded by Sir Charles Metcalfe, who had held
prominent official positions in India, and was governor of Jamaica
previous to Lord Elgin's appointment. No one who has studied his
character can doubt the honesty of his motives or his amiable
qualities, but his political education in India and Jamaica rendered
him in many ways incapable of understanding the political conditions
of a country like Canada, where the people were determined to work out
the system of parliamentary government on strictly British principles.
He could have obtained little assistance from British statesmen had he
been desirous of mastering and applying the principles of responsible
government to the dependency. Their opinions and instructions were
still distinguished by a perplexing vagueness. They would not believe
that a governor of a dependency could occupy exactly the same relation
with respect to his responsible advisers and to political parties as
is occupied with such admirable results by the sovereign of England.
It was considered necessary that a governor should make himself as
powerful a factor as possible in the administration of public
affairs--that he should be practically the prime minister,
responsible, not directly to the colonial legislature, but to the
imperial government, whose servant he was and to whom he should
constantly refer for advice and assistance whenever in his opinion the
occasion arose. In other words it was almost impossible to remove from
the mind of any British statesman, certainly not from the colonial
office of those days, the idea that parliamentary gov