re provocative radical programme,
Francis Hincks declared for some kind of coalition: "I regret to say
there have been indications given by a section of the party to which I
belong, that it will be difficult indeed, unless they change their
policy, to preserve the Union. I will tell these persons (the
anti-state church reformers of Upper Canada) {299} that if the Union is
not preserved by them, as a necessary consequence, other combinations
must be formed by which the Union may be preserved. _I am ready to
give my cordial support to any combination of parties by which the
Union shall be maintained_."[4] Three years later, the party of
moderate reform which had co-operated with Elgin in creating a system
of truly responsible government, and which had done so much to restore
Canadian political equanimity, fell before a factious combination of
hostile groups. But the succeeding administration, nominally
Conservative, was actually Liberal-Conservative, and it remained in
power chiefly because Francis Hincks, who had led the Reformers,
desired his followers to assist it, as Peel and his immediate disciples
kept the British Whigs in office after 1846. Robert Baldwin had been
the leader of opposition during Sydenham's rule, and before it; indeed,
he may be called the organizer of party division in the days before the
grant of responsible government. Yet when the opponents of the compact
of 1854 quoted his precedent of party division against Hincks'
principle of union, Baldwin disowned his would-be supporters: "However
disinclined myself to {300} adventure upon such combinations, they are
unquestionably, in my opinion, under certain circumstances, not only
justifiable, but expedient, and even necessary. The government of the
country _must_ be carried on. It ought to be carried on with vigour.
If that can be done in no other way than by mutual concessions and a
coalition of parties, they become necessary."[5] In consequence, the
autumn of 1854 witnessed the remarkable spectacle of a Tory government,
headed by Sir Allan MacNab, carrying a bill to end the Clergy Reserve
troubles, in alliance with Francis Hincks and their late opponents.
The chief dissentients were the extreme radicals, who were now
nicknamed the Clear-Grits.[6]

After 1854, and for ten years, the political history of Canada is a
_reductio ad absurdum_ of the older party system. Government succeeded
government, only to fall a prey to its own lack of a suf