als. Surveying the scene not long after,
Goldwin Smith, fresh from English conditions, cynically quoted the
proverb: 'the smaller the pit, the fiercer the rats.' The upper and
lower branches of parliament were elective, and in both bodies the
ablest men in the country held seats. In those days commerce,
manufacturing, or banking did not, as they do now, withhold men of
marked talent from public affairs. But personal antipathies, magnified
into feuds, embittered the relations of men who naturally held many
views in {31} common, and distracted the politics of a province which
needed nothing so much as peace and unity of action.

The central figures in this storm of controversy were George Brown and
John A. Macdonald, easily the first personages in their respective
parties. The two were antipathetic. Their dispositions were as wide
asunder as the poles. Brown was serious, bold, and masterful.
Macdonald concealed unrivalled powers in statecraft and in the
leadership of men behind a droll humour and convivial habits. From the
first they had been political antagonists. But the differences were
more than political. Neither liked nor trusted the other. Brown bore
a grudge for past attacks reflecting upon his integrity, while
Macdonald, despite his experience in the warfare of party, must often
have winced at the epithets of the _Globe_, Brown's newspaper. During
ten years they were not on speaking terms. But when they joined to
effect a great object, dear to both, a truce was declared. 'We acted
together,' wrote Macdonald long after of Brown, 'dined in public places
together, played euchre in crossing the Atlantic and went into society
in England together. And yet on the day after he resigned we resumed
our old positions {32} and ceased to speak.'[1] To imagine that of all
men those two should combine to carry federation seemed the wildest and
most improbable dream. Yet that is what actually happened.

[Illustration: George Brown. From a photograph in the possession of
Mrs Freeland Barbour, Edinburgh.]

In June 1864, during the session of parliament in Quebec, government by
party collapsed. In the previous three years there had been two
general elections, and four Cabinets had gone to pieces. And while the
politicians wrangled, the popular mind, swayed by influences stronger
than party interest, convinced itself that the remedy lay in the
federal system. Brown felt that Upper Canada looked to him for reli