und.[16] Of all who came, the
immigration agents thought the Lowland Scots and the Ulster Irishmen
the best, and while the poorer class of settler lagged behind in the
cities of Lower Canada, these others generally pushed on to find a hard
earned living among the British settlers in the Upper Province. Some
of them found their way to the United States. Others, faced with the
intolerable delays of the land administration, took the risk of
"squatting," that is, settling on wild land without securing a right to
it--often to find themselves dislodged by a legal owner at the moment
when their possession _de facto_ seemed established. The majority
settled as small farmers in the more frequented districts, or became
shop-keepers and artisans in the towns. Politically their position was
curious. The Reform Act of 1832 had extended the British franchise,
but the majority had still no votes; and the immigrants belonged to the
unenfranchised classes. The Irish had the additional disability of
being reckoned disloyal, followers of the great Irish demagogue, and
disorderly persons until proved otherwise.[17] To government servants
and {23} the older settlers alike, it seemed perilous to the community
to share political power with them. Yet they were British citizens;
many of them at once became active members of the community through
their standing as freeholders; the democratic influence of the United
States told everywhere on their behalf; and even where hard work left
little time for political discussion, the fact that local needs might
be assisted by political discussion, and the stout individualism bred
by the life of struggle in village, town, and country, forced the new
settlers to interest themselves in politics. Many of the new arrivals
had some pretensions to education--more especially those from Scotland.
Indeed it is worthy of note that from the Scottish stream of
immigration there came not only the earlier agitators, Gourlay and
Mackenzie, but, at a later date, George Brown, the first great
political journalist in Canada, Alexander Mackenzie and Oliver Mowat,
future leaders of Canadian liberalism, and John A. Macdonald, whose
imperialism never lacked a tincture of traditional Scottish caution.
The new immigrants were unlikely to challenge the social supremacy of
the old aristocracy, but they formed so large an accession to the
population that they could not {24} long remain without political
power. They must ei