ng, what is indisputable, that the claims of humanity
should supersede the claims of possession. With Russell himself
declaring till the eleventh hour that responsible government was out of
the question because it meant "separation," they were quite justified in
demanding that separation, if indeed inevitable, should come about by
agreement, not as the possible result of a fratricidal war. For such a
war, though Russell could not see it until Durham made him see it, was
the only alternative to the grant of responsible government. But the
Radicals never used this argument unless circumstances forced them to.
Molesworth, in a debate of March 6, 1838, denounced the prevailing view
of the Colonies, insisted that we should be proud of them and study
their interests, that reform, not separation, should be our aim. The
Radicals were fully aware of the alternatives, and were unwearied in
pointing out the justice and policy, in the Imperial interests, of
acceding to the colonial popular demands. Grote had expressed the truth
in the December debate of 1837, when he implored the House "not to use a
tone of triumph at the superior power of England," but to remember that
the colonists, "though freemen, like ourselves," desired to remain, "if
they could do so with honour, in connection with England as the Mother
Country." He was followed by a gentleman named Inglis, who said that "it
was in Canada as in Ireland," a faction called itself Canada, and that
we must bring "back the colonists," like the Irish, "to subordination."

Roebuck, who led the Radicals in Canadian matters, had some of the
faults of Papineau and Mackenzie; yet posterity should give him and his
comrades credit for a constructive Imperialism which the great men of
his day lacked. It is now known that he and Sir William Molesworth
powerfully influenced Durham's policy. In a paper he drew up at Durham's
request on the eve of that nobleman's departure for Canada he sketched a
plan, imperfect in some details, but wise in broad conception, for
pacifying the Canadas, and went further in elaborating a scheme, also
defective, for the Confederation of British North America under the
Crown on the lines conceived by the despised demagogue, Mackenzie.[27]
But the two men who, by influencing Durham, probably did most to save
Canada for the Empire and to lay the foundations of the present Imperial
structure, were Charles Buller, the Radical M.P., and Edward Gibbon
Wakefield, both of