hat of wholly
British Upper Canada. His calculation was that in a joint assembly the
British would have a small but sufficient majority. The estimated
population of Lower Canada was 550,000, of whom 450,000 were French, and
100,000 British and Irish; that of Upper Canada 400,000, all British and
Irish. That is to say, that in both Provinces together there was a
British and Irish majority of 100,000. The calculation over-estimated
the British element, but in the event this mistake proved to be
immaterial. Though Durham himself appears to have intended
representation to be in strict accordance with population, the Union
Act, passed in 1840, allotted an equal number of representatives in the
Joint Assembly to each of the old Provinces. The assumption here was
that the British Members from Upper Canada would unite with those of old
Lower Canada to vote down the French, just as the Ulster Protestants
voted with English members to vote down the Irish majority.

In practice the Union, after lasting twenty-six years, eventually broke
down. Durham's fear of French disloyalty proved to be as groundless as
his ideal of complete anglicization was futile. It was neither
necessary, sensible, nor possible to extinguish French sentiment, and
human nature triumphed over this half-hearted effort to apply in
dilution the medicine of Fitzgibbonism to the Colonies. Little harm was
done, because the introduction of responsible government, far
transcending the Union in importance, worked irresistibly for good.
Parties did not run wholly on racial lines, but racialism was encouraged
by the equal representation of the two Provinces in the Assembly, in
spite of the greater growth of population in the Upper Province. The
system was unhealthy, and at last produced a state of deadlock, in which
two exactly equal parties were balanced, and a stable Government
impossible. When that point was reached, men began to observe the strong
and supple Constitution of the adjacent United States, and to recognize
that a politically feeble Canada was courting an absorption from that
quarter which all Canadians disliked. The Legislative Union was
dissolved by the mutual consent of the Provinces with the approval of
the Mother Country, and in 1867, under the British North America Act,
the Federal Union was formed which exists in such strength and stability
to-day. Fear of French disloyalty or tyranny was a night-mare of the
past, even with the British minority in