had been pardoned, a question arose whether or no
the government should make good the losses of those
French Canadians who had been injured. The English
Canadians protested that it would be monstrous that
they should be taxed to repair damages suffered by
rebels, and made necessary in the suppression of rebellion.
The French Canadians declared that the rebellion had
been only a just assertion of their rights; that if
there had been crime on the part of those who took
up arms, that crime had been condoned, and that the
damages had not fallen exclusively or even chiefly
on those who had done so. I will give no opinion
on the merits of the question, but simply say that
blood ran very hot when it was discussed. At
last the Houses of the Provincial Parliament, then
assembled at Montreal, decreed that the losses should
be made good by the public treasury; and the English
mob in Montreal, when this decree became known, was
roused to great wrath by a decision which seemed to
be condemnatory of English loyalty. It pelted
Lord Elgin, the Governor-General, with rotten eggs,
and burned down the Parliament house. Hence
there arose, not unnaturally, a strong feeling of
anger on the part of the local government against
Montreal; and moreover there was no longer a house
in which the Parliament could be held in that town.
For these conjoint reasons it was decided to move
the seat of government again, and it was resolved
that the Governor and the Parliament should sit alternately
at Toronto in Upper Canada, and at Quebec in Lower
Canada, remaining four years at each place. They
went at first to Toronto for two years only, having
agreed that they should be there on this occasion
only for the remainder of the term of the then Parliament.
After that they were at Quebec for four years; then
at Toronto for four; and now again are at Quebec.
But this arrangement has been found very inconvenient.
In the first place there is a great national expenditure
incurred in moving old records and in keeping double
records, in moving the library, and, as I have been
informed, even the pictures. The government clerks
also are called on to move as the government moves;
and though an allowance is made to them from the national
purse to cover their loss, the arrangement has nevertheless
been felt by them to be a grievance, as may be well
understood. The accommodation also for the ministers
of the government and for members of the two Houses
has been insufficient. Hotels, lodgings, and
furnished houses could not be provided to the extent
required, seeing that they would be left nearly empty
for every alternate space of four years. Indeed,
it needs but little argument to prove that the plan
adopted must have been a thoroughly uncomfortable
plan, and the wonder is that it should have been adopted.
Lower Canada had undertaken to make all her leading
citizens wretched, providing Upper Canada would treat
hers with equal severity. This has now gone on
for some twelve years, and as the system was found
to be an unendurable nuisance, it has been at last
admitted that some steps must be taken toward selecting
one capital for the country.