are introduced without notice, and carried through all their stages in
a quarter of an hour."[65] The first efforts in the struggle for
responsible government were rendered needlessly irritating by the
absence of that spirit of courteous moderation which usually
characterizes the proceedings of the Imperial Parliament. The
relations between the governor and his ministers, at the best
difficult, were made impossible for a man like Metcalfe by the
ill-mannered disdain with which, as all the citizens of his capital
knew, the cabinet spoke of their official head; and in debate the
personal element played far too prominent a part. In all the early
Union assemblies, too, the house betrayed its inexperience by passing
rapidly from serious constitutional questions to petty jobs and
quarrels, and as rapidly back again to first principles. There was a
general failure to see the risk run by too frequent discussions on
fundamentals, and much of the bitterness of party strife would have
been avoided if the rival parties could have prosecuted their {67}
adverse operations by slower and more scientific approaches.

The warmth of feeling and the disorder exhibited in the councils of
state and the assembly, met with a ready response in the country. It
is only fair to say that many of the gravest disturbances were caused
by recent immigrants, more especially by the Irish labourers on the
canals in the neighbourhood of Montreal.[66] But the whole community
must share in the discredit. The days had not yet ceased when
political bills called on adherents of one or other party to assemble
"with music and good shillelaghs";[67] and indeed the decade from 1840
to 1850 was distinctly one of political rioting. The election of 1841
was disgraced, more especially in Lower Canada, by very violent strife.
In 1843 an Act was deemed necessary "to provide for the calling and
orderly holding of public meetings in this province and for the better
preservation of the public peace thereat."[68] In the Montreal
election of April, 1844, Metcalfe accused both his former
inspector-general and the reform candidate of using inflammatory and
reckless language, and {68} certainly both then and in November
disgraceful riots made the elections no true register of public
sentiment. At the very end of the decade, the riots caused by the
passing of the "Rebellion Losses" Act, organized, it must be
remembered, by the so-called loyal party, endangered the life