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In contradistinction to the British Constitutional Society mentioned towards the close of the last chapter, the new association was called the Constitutional Reform Society. Dr. Baldwin accepted the Presidency, and Francis Hincks, who was then engaged in commercial life in Toronto, was appointed Secretary.

Before August, he had conciliated moderate reforming opinion through Hincks; he had proved to the French, by legal appointments, which met with a stiff and forced acquiescence in Stanley, that at least he was not their enemy. He had begun to question the certainty of Stanley's wisdom on the Civil List, and various other subjects.

Hincks, setting forth fully his grounds of complaint against the government: failure to reform the representation of Upper Canada, slackness in dealing with the secularization of the clergy reserves, weakness in yielding to the demand for separate schools. All this he attributed to Roman Catholic or French-Canadian influence.

At the same time, there is no doubt that George Brown's anti-Catholic, anti-French crusade, while but one factor among several in contributing to the downfall of the Baldwin and Hincks Governments, became in after years, when directed against successive Liberal-Conservative Administrations, the most formidable obstacle against which Macdonald had to contend.

Sir Francis Hincks, a protagonist of Responsible Government, once quoted from the Report sentences which seemed to justify all his claims: "The crown must submit to the necessary consequences of representative institutions, and if it has to carry on the government in union with a representative body, it must consent to carry it on by means of those in whom that representative body has confidence"; and again, "I admit that the system which I propose would in fact place the internal government of the colony in the hands of the colonists themselves, and that we should thus leave to them the execution of the laws of which we have long entrusted the making solely to them."

Their place was taken in Canada West by Hincks, an adroit tactician and a skilled financier, intent on railway building and trade development; and in Canada East by Morin, a somewhat colorless lieutenant of La Fontaine. But these leaders in turn soon gave way to new men; and the political parties gradually fell into a state of flux.

The principle involved, which seems now the merest common sense, was then scouted as government 'by dint of miserable majorities. Sullivan was the senior member in the new ministry, though it is known by the names of its leaders. It included Hincks and five other members of the previous Cabinet. In accordance with another rule of the political game the new ministers had to seek re-election.

The Ontario Orangemen were filled with anger at the brutal murder of Thomas Scott by Louis Riel at Fort Garry and the failure of the Government at Ottawa to seize the murderer. The anti-confederate feeling was still strong in Nova Scotia. There was dissatisfaction over the appointment of Sir Francis Hincks. In many quarters the Washington Treaty was unpopular.

The consent of the three provinces was essential, and New Brunswick would not support the Halifax and Quebec project if the Portland road, running through the most populous and influential sections of the province, was to be postponed indefinitely. Hincks determined to endeavour to save the situation.

Canada was passing through an ordeal, which, sooner or later, Britain too must face. Her answer, in this case, to the dilemma between service of the community and self-aggrandisement was not unworthy of the mother country. Still, in spite of the acquittal of Hincks, there were cases of complicated corruption, and a multitude of little squalid sins.