t. Brown made an
earnest speech in favour of the motion, in which he remarked that
Canada then contained nine hundred and thirty-one whiskey shops,
fifty-eight steamboat bars, three thousand four hundred and thirty
taverns, one hundred and thirty breweries, and one hundred and
thirty-five distilleries.

The marked diminution of intemperance in the last fifty years may be
attributed in part to restrictive laws, and in part to the work of the
temperance societies, which rivalled the taverns in social
attractions, and were effective agents of moral suasion.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Young, _op. cit._, pp. 58, 59.

CHAPTER VIII

RECONSTRUCTION OF PARTIES

In June, 1854, the Hincks-Morin government was defeated in the
legislature on a vote of censure for delay in dealing with the
question of the clergy reserves. A combination of Tories and Radicals
deprived Hincks of all but five of his Upper Canadian supporters.
Parliament was immediately dissolved, and the ensuing election was a
_melee_ in which Hincks Reformers, Brown Reformers, Tories and Clear
Grits were mingled in confusion. Brown was returned for Lambton, where
he defeated the Hon. Malcolm Cameron, postmaster-general under Hincks.
The Reform party was in a large majority in the new legislature, and
if united could have controlled it with ease. But the internal quarrel
was irreconcilable. Hincks was defeated by a combination of Tories and
dissatisfied Reformers, and a general reconstruction of parties
followed. Sir Allan MacNab, as leader of the Conservative opposition,
formed an alliance with the French-Canadian members of the Hincks
government and with some of its Upper Canadian supporters. Hincks
retired, but gave his support to the new combination, "being of
opinion that the combination of parties by which the new government
was supported presented the only solution of the difficulties caused
by a coalition of parties holding no sentiments in common, a coalition
which rarely takes place in England. I deemed it my duty to give my
support to that government during the short period that I continued in
public life."[9]

Whether the MacNab-Morin government was a true coalition or a Tory
combination under that name was a question fiercely debated at that
time. It certainly did not stand for the Toryism that had resisted
responsible government, the secularization of the clergy reserves, and
the participation of French-Canadians in the government of the
country.