It was at this time that Lord Elgin commenced to give utterance to the
views that he had formed with respect to the best method of giving a
stimulus to the commercial and industrial interests that were so
seriously crippled by the free trade policy of the British government.
So serious had been its effects upon the economic conditions of the
province that mill-owners, forwarders and merchants had been ruined
"at one fell swoop," that the revenue had been reduced by the loss of
the canal dues paid previously by the shipping engaged in the trade
promoted by the old colonial policy of England, that private property
had become unsaleable, that not a shilling could be raised on the
credit of the province, that public officers of all grades, including
the governor-general, had to be paid in debentures which were not
exchangeable at par. Under such circumstances it was not strange, said
the governor-general, that Canadians were too ready to make
unfavourable comparisons between themselves and their republican
neighbours. "What makes it more serious," he said, "is that all the
prosperity of which Canada is thus robbed is transplanted to the other
side of the line, as if to make Canadians feel more bitterly how much
kinder England is to the children who desert her, than to those who
remain faithful. It is the inconsistency of imperial legislation, and
not the adoption of one policy rather than another, which is the bane
of the colonies."

He believed that "the conviction that they would be better off if they
were annexed," was almost universal among the commercial classes at
that time, and the peaceful condition of the province under all the
circumstances was often a matter of great astonishment even to
himself. In his letters urging the imperial government to find an
immediate remedy for this unfortunate condition of things, he