t about, so long,
at least, as he remained a member of the government.

In the year and a half that elapsed between his withdrawal from the
government and the first general election under the new constitution,
he had a somewhat difficult part to play. He had to aid in the work of
carrying confederation, and at the same time to aid in the work of
re-organizing the Liberal party, which had been temporarily divided
and weakened by the new issue introduced into politics. In the Reform
convention of 1867 the attitude of the party towards confederation was
considered. It was resolved that "while the new constitution contained
obvious defects, it was, on the whole, based upon equitable principles
and should be accepted with the determination to work it loyally and
patiently, and to provide such amendments as experience from year to
year may prove to be expedient." It was declared that coalitions of
opposing political parties for ordinary administrative purposes
resulted in corruption, extravagance and the abandonment of principle;
that the coalition of 1864 could be justified only on the ground of
imperious necessity, as the only available means of obtaining just
representation for Upper Canada, and should come to an end when that
object was attained; and that the temporary alliance of the Reform and
Conservative parties should cease. Howland and Macdougall, who had
decided to remain in the ministry, strove to maintain that it was a
true coalition, and that the old issues that divided the parties were
at an end; and their bearing before a hostile audience was tactful and
courageous. But Brown and his friends carried all before them.

Brown argued strongly against the proposal to turn the coalition
formed for confederation into a coalition for ordinary administrative
purposes; and in a passage of unusual fervour he asked whether his
Reform friends were to be subjected to the humiliation of following in
the train of John A. Macdonald.

It is difficult to understand how so chimerical a notion as a
non-party government led by Macdonald could have been entertained by
practical politicians. A permanent position in a Macdonald ministry
would have been out of the question for Brown, not only because of his
standing as a public man, but because of his control of the _Globe_,
which under such an arrangement would have been reduced to the
position of an organ of the Conservative government. There were also
all the elements of a powerf