Part 10 (2/2)

Bennett was tried and found guilty of , and was executed a h he caused the death of a man so conspicuous in the public life of Canada, his act is not to be classed with assassinations committed from political motives, or even from love of notoriety On the scaffold he said that he had not intended to kill Mr Brown However this may be, it is certain that it was not any act of Mr Brown's that set up that process of brooding over grievances that had so tragic an ending By ulated had been reduced to that condition in which enemies are seen on every hand A paper was found upon hi a supposed ene the reinal object of his enhtest ground for the suspicion that the victim was made to suffer for some ene that after such a career he shouldsolely of private grievances!

Tracing Mr Brown's career through a long period of history, by his public actions, his speeches, and the volumes of his newspaper, one arrives at a soossip and tradition That tradition pictures adown by sheer force all opposition to his will In the main it is probably true; but the printed record is also true, and out of the te must strive to reproduce theeye, with gestures that seemed almost to threaten physical violence

We read the report of the speech and we find so more than the ordinary transition from warm humanity, to cold print There is not only freedo, a systeht say of many of his speeches, as was said of Alexander Mackenzie's sentences, that he built they was not spasmodic, but was backed by solid industry, h said in a little poem published soon after Mr Brown's death,

”His nature was a rushi+ng mountain stream; His faults but eddies which its swiftness bred”

In his business as a journalist, he had not much of that philosophy which says that the daily difficulties of a newspaper are sure to solve themselves by the effluxion of time There are traditions of his i, but there are traditions also of a kindness large enough to include the lad who carried the proofs to his house Those ere thoroughly acquainted with the affairs of the office say that he was extremely lenient with employees ere intemperate or otherwise incurred blame, and that his leniency had been extended to Bennett Intimate friends and political associates deny that he played the dictator, and say that he was genial and humorous in familiar intercourse But it is, after all, a so this virtue against that fault, and soleer exceeds the other We have to deal with the character of Brown as a force in its relation to other forces, and to the events of the period of history covered by his career

A quarter of a century has now elapsed since the death of George Brown and a still longer ti scenes in his career were enacted We ought therefore to be able to see hi like his true relation to the history of his times He caovern the dominant class a curious revival of the fa;” hence the rise of such leaders, partly political and partly religious, as Bishop Strachan, a the Methodists, the for the exclusive privileges of the Anglican Church There was roo Presbyterians, and in a certain sense this was the opportunity of George Brown In founding first a Presbyterian paper and afterwards a political paper, he was following a line familiar to the people of his ti Presbyterians, he appeared, not as claies for the first the Anglican Church and afterwards the Ro in each case the principle of the separation of Church and State

For some years after Brown's arrival in Canada, those questions in which politics and religion were blended were subordinated to a question purely political--colonial self-government The atmosphere was not favourable to cool discussion The colony had been in rebellion, and the passions aroused by the rebellion were always ready to burst into fla been more deeply stirred by the rebellion than Upper Canada, racial animosity was added there to party bitterness The task of the Reformers was to work steadily for the establishhly iovernment, and, at the same time, to keep the movement free fro figure of this movement is that of Robert Baldwin, and he ell supported by Hincks, by Sullivan, by William Hume Blake and others The forces isely led, and it is not pretended that this direction was due to Brown He was in 1844 only twenty-six years of age, and his position at first was that of a recruit But he was a recruit of uncoinate, he eht on strictly constitutional and peaceful lines His experience in New York and his deep hatred of slavery had strengthened by contrast his conviction that Great Britain was the citadel of liberty, and hence his utterances in favour of British connection were not conventional, but gloith enthusiasm

With 1849 ca effort of the old regis at Montreal Now ensued a change in both parties The one, exhausted and discredited by its fight against the inevitable co of the new order, remained for a time weak and inactive, under a leader whose day was done The other, in the very hour of victory, began to suffer disintegration It had its Conservative ele to rest and be thankful, and its Radical eleland Brown stood for a tiovernment and the Conservative element on the one side and the Clear Grits on the other Disintegration was hastened by the retirement of Baldwin and Lafontaine Then can of Hincks; then a reconstruction of parties, with Conservatives under the leadershi+p of Macdonald and Reformers under that of Brown

The stream of politics between 1854 and 1864 is turbid; there is pettiness, there is bitterness, there is confusion But away fro in population, in wealth, in all the ele by iration; it overtakes and passes Lower Canada in population, and thus arises the question of representation by population Brown takes up this refor Upper Canada from the domination of the Lower Province He becoh his French-Canadian alliance, meets him with a majority from Lower Canada; and so, for several years, there is a period of equally balanced parties and weak govern in dead-lock

If Brown's action had only broken this dead-lock, extricated so politicians froovern notice But more than that was involved The difficulty was inherent in the systeislative union was Lord Durha the races that he had found ”warring in the bosoe was as sharply defined as ever The ill-assorted union had produced only strife andYet to break the tie when new duties and new dangers had emphasized the necessity for union seemed to be an act of folly To federalize the union was to coe of common action with liberty to each comovernment and all other matters of local concern More than that, to federalize the union was to substitute for a rigid bond a bond elastic enough to allow of expansion, eastward to the Atlantic and ard to the Pacific That principle which has been called provincial rights, or provincial autonoht be described more accurately and comprehensively as federalism; and it is the basic principle of Canadian political institutions, as essential to unity as to peace and local freedom

The feeble, isolated and distracted colonies of 1864 have given place to a commonwealth which, if not in strictness a nation, possesses all the elements and possibilities of nationality, with a territory open on three sides to the ocean, lying in the highway of the world's coe as that of the British Islands Confederation was the first and greatest step in that process of expansion, and it is speaking only words of truth and soberness to say that confederation will rank a the landmarks of the world's history, and that its importance will not decline but will increase as history throws events into their true perspective It is in his association with confederation, with the events that led up to confederation, and with the addition to Canada of the vast and fertile plains of the West, that the life of George Brown is of interest to the student of history

Broas not only a member of parliament and an actor in the political drama, but was the founder of a newspaper, and for thirty-six years the source of its inspiration and influence As a journalist he touched life at many points He was a man of varied interests--railways, riculture, all cae of his duty as a journalist and his interest and sympathy as aand intrigue of the politicians were turning the wilderness of Canada into a garden, gave to Brown in large measure their confidence and affection He, on his part, valued their friendshi+p aed

This story of his life may help to show that he was true to the trust they reposed in him, and to the principles that were the standards of his political conduct, to governious liberty and equality, to the unity and progress of the confederation of which he was one of the builders