m from a safe seat at Terrebonne. Unfortunately
the protests were lodged too late, and a furious struggle sprang up, as
to whether the legal period should, in the cases under consideration,
be extended, or whether, as the government contended, an inquiry and
amendments affecting only the future should suffice. It was ominous
for the cause of limited responsibility, that the government had to own
defeat in the Lower House, and saved itself only {118} by the veto of
the Legislative Council. Nor was that the end. A mosaic work of
opposition, old Tories, French Canadians, British anti-unionists, and
Upper Canada Reformers, was gradually formed, and at any moment some
chance issue might lure over a few from the centre to wreck the
administration. Most of the greater measures passed through the ordeal
safely, including a bill reforming the common schools and another
establishing a Board of Works. The critical moment of the latter part
of the session, however, came with the introduction of a bill to
establish District Councils in Upper Canada, to complete the work
already done in Lower Canada. The forces in opposition rallied to the
attack, Conservatives because the bill would increase the popular
element in government, Radicals because the fourth clause enacted that
the governor of the province might appoint, under the Great Seal of the
province, fit and proper persons to hold during his pleasure the office
of Warden of the various districts;[56] and, as Sydenham himself
hinted, there were those who regretted the loss to members of Assembly
of a great opportunity for jobbery. One motion passed by the
chairman's casting vote; {119} and nothing, in the governor-general's
judgment, saved the bill but the circumstance of his having already
established such councils in Lower Canada.[57]

There was one more attack in force before the session ended. On
September 3rd, Baldwin, seconded by a French Canadian, moved "that the
most important as well as the most undoubted of the political rights of
the people of the province, is that of having a provincial parliament
for the protection of their liberties, for the exercise of a
constitutional influence over the executive departments of the
government, and for legislation upon all matters, which do not on the
ground of absolute necessity constitutionally belong to the
jurisdiction of the Imperial parliament, as the paramount authority of
the Empire."[58] The issue was stated moder