fficient
indication that the measures of the government {309} would be met with
the opposition of those honorable gentlemen who had by their solemn
vote withdrawn their confidence from the government."[11] The practice
continued in this state of discredit varied by occasional forced use,
until a government--that of J. S. Macdonald and Sicotte--which had
definitely made the double majority one of the planks in its platform,
found that its principal measure, the Separate Schools Act of R. W.
Scott, had to be carried by a French majority, although the matter was
one of deep concern to Upper Canada. It was becoming obvious that
local interests must receive some securer protection than could be
afforded by what was after all an evasion of constitutional practice.

Meanwhile complications were arising from another movement, the
agitation for a revision of parliamentary representation. The twelfth
section of the Union Act had enacted that "the parts of the said
Province which now constitute the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada
respectively, shall be represented by an equal number of
representatives." At the time of Union the balance of population had
inclined decisively towards {310} Lower Canada; indeed that part of the
province might fairly claim to have a constitutional grievance. But
between 1830 and 1860 the balance had altered. In Lower Canada a
population, which in 1831 had been 511,922, had increased by 1844 to
almost 700,000; while in Upper Canada the numbers had increased from
334,681 to well over 700,000 in 1848;[12] and each year saw the west
increase in comparison with the east, until George Brown, speaking no
doubt with forensic rather than scientific ends in view, estimated that
in 1857 Upper Canada possessed a population of over 1,400,000, as
against a bare 1,100,000 in Lower Canada.[13] These changes produced a
most interesting complication. The representation after 1840 stood
guaranteed by a solemn act--the more solemn because it had been the
result of a bargain between Sydenham and the provincial authorities in
Upper and Lower Canada. It had the appearance rather of a treaty than
of an ordinary Act of Parliament. On the other hand, since
self-government had been secured, and since self-government seemed to
involve the principle of representation in proportion {311} to the
numbers of the population, it was, according to the Upper Canadian
politicians, absurd to give to 1,100,000 the same represen