ox and Pitt. But a
nation must begin somewhere, and these trivial divisions received a
kind of consecration when they centred round the discussion of colonial
self-government. After all, so long as autonomy was only partially
conceded, and so long as men felt impelled to take opposite sides on
that subject, it was foolish to deny that there were Canadian parties,
and that their differences were of some importance.

{295}

Moreover, before 1847 there were other good reasons for the existence
of two distinct parties. It was true, as Sydenham had said, that the
British party names were not quite appropriate to the parties in Canada
who had adopted them. Yet there were some links between British and
Canadian parties. The British and the Canadian Tories had, in 1840,
many views in common. In a time of change both stood for a pronounced
distrust of democracy; both regarded the creation of responsible
government in Canada as disastrous to the connection; both were the
defenders of Church and State. On the other hand, it was not
unnatural, as Elgin came to see, to compare the party led by Baldwin
and La Fontaine with the Reformers in England who looked to Lord John
Russell as their true leader. Until the political traditions, which
most of the recent immigrants had brought with them from Britain, had
disappeared or been transformed into a new Canadian tradition, and so
long as certain grave constitutional defects which cried for remedy
remained unaltered, Canadian Tories and Reformers must exist, and
government, as Metcalfe discovered, was impossible, unless it
recognized in these provincial divisions the motive power of local
administration.

{296}

But between 1847 and 1854 the foundations of these earlier parties had
been, not so much undermined, as entirely removed. "The continuance of
agitation on these intensely exciting questions," wrote Elgin in his
latest despatch from Canada, "was greatly to be deprecated, and their
settlement, on terms which command the general acquiescence of those
who are most deeply interested, can hardly fail to be attended with
results in a high degree beneficial."[2] Elgin had removed the reason
for existence of both parties by settling the issues which divided
them. At the same time, the growth of a political life different from
that of Britain, had, year by year, made the British names more
inappropriate. John A. Macdonald, the leader of those who had once
called themselves