ves of the Crown and men who
had inherited position or caste from their Loyalist fathers, had been
attacked by a motley and shifting opposition, sober Whig and fiery
Radical, newcomers from Britain or from the States, and {19}
native-born, united mainly by their common antagonism to clique rule.
In Lower Canada the same contest, on account of the monopoly of
administration held by the English-speaking minority, dubbed
'Bureaucrats' or the 'Chateau Clique,' had taken on the aspect of a
racial struggle.

When at last self-government in essentials had been won, the old
dividing lines began to melt away. All but a small knot of Tory
irreconcilables now agreed that the majority must rule, and that this
would neither smash the Empire nor make an end of order and justice in
the province itself. But who were to unite to form that majority, and
what was to be their platform? In the Reform party there had been many
men of essentially conservative mind, men such as John Redmond before
the winning of Irish Home Rule, who on one point had been forced into
hostility to an order of society with which, on other points, they were
in almost complete sympathy. Particularly in Quebec, as John A.
Macdonald was quick to see, there were many such, quite ready to rally
to authority now that opportunity was open to all. Other factors
hastened the breakdown of the old groupings. Economic interests came
to the fore. In the {20} discussion of canal and railway projects,
banking and currency, trade and tariffs, new personal, class, or
sectional interests arose. Once, too, that the machinery of
responsible government had been installed, differences in political
aptitude, in tactics and ideals, developed, and personal rivalries
sharpened.

As a result of this unsettling and readjustment, a new party developed
in the early fifties, composed of the moderate sections of both the
older parties, and calling itself Liberal-Conservative. It took over
the policy of the Reformers, on self-government, on the clergy
reserves, on seigneurial tenure. The old Tory party dwindled and its
platform disappeared. Yet a strong Opposition is essential to the
proper working of the British system of parliamentary government; if it
did not exist, it would have to be created. No artificial effort,
however, was now needed to produce it. A Liberalism or a
Liberal-Conservatism which stood still as time marched by soon ceased
to be true Liberalism; and new groups