These principles are now so well established that it is hard to realize how bold and radical they appeared in 1839. Between that time and 1847, the British government sent out to Canada three governors, with various instructions. Whatever the wording of these instructions was, they always fell short of Durham's recommendations, and always expressed a certain reluctance to entrusting the government of Canada unreservedly to representatives of the people.
From 1842 to 1846 the government in Great Britain was that of Sir Robert Peel, and it was that government which set itself most strongly against the granting of autonomy to Canada. It was Conservative, and it probably received from correspondents in Canada a good deal of misinformation and prejudiced opinion in regard to the aims of the Reformers. But it was a group of men of the highest character and capacity, concerning whom Gladstone has left on record a remarkable testimony. "It is his conviction that in many of the most important rules of public policy, that government surpassed generally the governments which have succeeded it, whether Liberal or Conservative. Among them he would mention purity in patronage, financial strictness, loyal adherence to the principle of public economy, jealous regard to the rights of parliament, a single eye to the public interest, strong aversion to extension of territorial responsibilities, and a frank admission of the rights of foreign countries as equal to those of their own."
With this high estimate of the general character of the Peel government must be coupled the undoubted fact that it entirely misunderstood the situation in Canada, gave its support to the party of reaction, and needlessly delayed the establishment of self-government. We may attribute this in part to the distrust occasioned by the rebellion; in part to the use of partisan channels of information; but under all this was a deeper cause--inability to conceive of such a relation as exists between Great Britain and Canada to-day. In that respect Peel and his colleagues resembled most of the public men of their time. They could understand separation; they could understand a relation in which the British government and its agents ruled the colonies in a kindly and paternal fashion; but a union under which the colonies were nations in all but foreign relations passed their comprehension. When the colonies asked for complete self-government it was supposed that separation was really desired. Some were for letting them go in peace. Others were for holding them by political and commercial bonds. Of the latter class, Stanley, colonial secretary under Peel, was a good type. He believed in "strong" governors; he believed in a system of preferential trade between Great Britain and the colonies, and his language might have been used, with scarcely any modification, by the Chamberlain party in the recent elections in Great Britain. When, in 1843, he introduced the measure giving a preference to Canadian wheat, he expressed the hope that it would restore content and prosperity to Canada; and when that preference disappeared with the Corn Laws, he declared that the basis of colonial union was destroyed.
