The Bicultural Problem: An 1839 View

16. "Literature in a New Country", Scotchman's Return , Macmillan, Toronto, 1960, pp. 140-141. Readers will note the interesting use of "old" and "new" in this passage. See also a letter quoted by Roy Daniells (note 4 above), p. 29. 17. See "The Story of A Novel", which began as a CBC talk, appeared in Canadian Literature, No. 3, 1960, and has been reprinted in Masks of Fiction, ed. A. J. M. Smith, Toronto, 1961, pp. 33-38. 18. The Watch That Ends The Night, Macmillan, Toronto, 1959, pp. 60-61. 19. The Canadian Establishment has recently been surveyed by John Porter in The Vertical Mosaic, Toronto, 1965. An astute fictional treatment of the Montreal Establishment, to which MacLennan is clearly indebted in Two Solitudes, is Gwethalyn Graham's Earth and High Heaven, New York, 1944. 20. For war and medicine, see Neil Macrae, Angus Murray , Daniel Ainslie, and Jerome Martell; for female The Bicultural Problem: An1839View C. F. J. WHEBELL With controversies about Quebec's seceding, becoming an associate state, or remaining in the Canadian federation very much at issue, it is timely to examine the views of some private citizens at another period when this whole issue was prominent in Canadian politics. The views of Durham and of officialdom on the Canadian rebellions of 1837-8 are well-known, as is their cure for the problems of unrest. The paper concerns an unofficial proposal for the Union and internal division of the Canadas made in 1839. The present writer was led to it through a search for cartographic sources in the Public Record Office in England. Submitted in the form of an anonymous letter with the proposal appended, the document is in Journal of Canadian Studies heroism see Penny Wain, Lucy Cameron, Margaret Ainslie, and Catherine Stewart. 21. The Watch That Ends The Night, pp. 270-271. 22. ibid., p. 132. 23. ibid., p. 320. 24. Douglas LePan's brilliant description of Canadian character; quoted by Robertson Davies in Saturday Night, 28 March 1959, p. 29. 25. This mixture of national and universal, of province and heartland, will also inform MacLennan's forthcoming novel Return of the Sphinx, of which he writes: "... its basic subject is the most urgent one in the world today - the split between generations. It's as though what we have lived through in Canada in the last few years, especially in Montreal, made it possible to achieve here the sharpest focus of the world crisis." 26. The New Yorker, 14 November 1964, p. 99. a miscellaneous volume of Colonial Office papers .1 The original is endorsed, "Given to Mr. Labouchere by Mr. Audjo." This is evidently Mr. George Auldjo, a prominent Montreal businessman of the 1820's and 1830's who was first chairman of the Montreal Committee of Trade when it was formed in 1829.2 The proposal may be taken, therefore, as representative of the point of view of the Montreal business interests. Indeed , the internal evidence supports this interpretation . The document is undated, but the reference to "Mr. Labouchere" suggests spring or summer of 1839, since Henry Labouchere was Under-Secretary for the Colonies from February to August of that year. Its position in the volume of miscellaneous papers, many of which are dated letters, indicates spring, say May, of 1839 as the time of delivery. It thus followed publication of the Durham Report and is contemporaneous with the abortive Union Bill of 1839 which was withdrawn in the same month "in deference to what appears to be the general sentiment of the people of Upper Canada."3 11 The scheme proposed the unification of the Canadas with a single Executive and Legislature , followed by division into five units, termed Departments or Lieutenancies, named Quebec, Montreal, the Rideau, Toronto and Niagara. Each Lieutenancy would have a local executive and a local Judiciary, subordinate to the General or Supreme Executive and Judiciary, respectively . The central Legislature would be bicameral, with the Lieutenancies the basis of representation in both houses. Four Lieutenancies would be similarly structured into Districts, Counties and townships, but that of Quebec was to be given special status, cognizant of its unique socio-economic system. For one thing...