should receive a majority of two-thirds in each branch of the
legislature. It would have become law on two occasions had it not been
for the factious opposition of Papineau, whose one vote would have
given the majority constitutionally necessary. When it was again
presented in 1853 by Mr. Morin, it received the bitter opposition of
Mr. Brown, who was now formulating the doctrine of representation by
population which afterwards became so important a factor in provincial
politics that it divided west from east, and made government
practically impossible until a federal union of the British North
American provinces was brought about as the only feasible solution of
the serious political and sectional difficulties under which Canada
was suffering. A number of prominent Conservatives, including Mr. John
A. Macdonald, were also unfavourable to the measure on the ground that
the population of Upper Canada, which was steadily increasing over
that of Lower Canada, should be equitably considered in any
readjustment of the provincial representation. The French Canadians,
who had been forced to come into the union hi 1841 with the same
representation as Upper Canada with its much smaller population, were
now unwilling to disturb the equality originally fixed while agreeing
to an increase in the number of representatives from each section.
The bill, which became law in 1853, was entirely in harmony with
the views entertained by Lord Elgin when he first took office as
governor-general of Canada. In 1847 he gave his opinion to the
colonial secretary that "the comparatively small number of members
of which the popular bodies who determine the fate of provincial
administrations" consisted was "unfavourable to the existence of a
high order of principle and feeling among official personages." When a
defection of two or three individuals from a majority of ten or so put
an administration in peril, "the perpetual patchwork and trafficking
to secure this vote and that (not to mention other evils) so engrosses