Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

THE CHARTER 33made its appearance, when the bank, having manifested nohostile feeling toward the Government, would be in a betterposition to secure modifications and improvements. He alsotells the Board of Directors that Senator Macphersonis ofthe opinion that the country is on the verge of an agitationover the banking question that will exceed the excitementof the "Rep-by-Pop" movement. 1 Mr. McMaster himselfbelieved that the new banking scheme would carry bothHouses and asked definite instructions from his directors as to"Do you," he asked, "wish me tothe course he was to pursue.oppose it to the bitter end, and destroy any influence I mayhave to improve the measure, or should I, to a moderate extent,accept the government scheme and do what I can, in a friendlyway, to improve it?" The directors refrained from givinghim definite instructions, but intimated that it would beinadvisable to take a position of antagonism towards theother banks on a question in which all were vitally interested.This reply seems to have been a disappointment to him, inthat the Board had left all the responsibility on his shoulders,and in a letter dated May 10 he explained that his position wasnot easy. "Should I finally decide on supporting the proposedbanking scheme," he continued, "I shall do so upon broad andwell-defined principles and because I believe it to be in theinterest of the banks and country generally, or because I feel1The movement for representation in Parliament in proportion to population,in other words, "representation by population," nicknamed "Rep-by-Pop" in thepolitical phrase of the day, was one of the burning political questions which sprungout of the Act of Union of 1841, already referred to in this volume (page 1). Owingto the fear of French domination, the English-speaking minority at the time the Actwas passed insisted on equal representation in the legislature for both Upper andLower Canada, in spite of the fact that the population of Lower Canada was half aslarge again as that of the Upper Province. During the years which followed, therate thanpopulation of Upper Canada increased by immigration at a much more rapidthat of Lower Canada, so that in about eight years it equalled and soon surpassed thepopulation of the Lower Province. Now that the tables were turned, the Frenchpopulation of Lower Canada naturally regarded the provisions of the Act of Unionas the legal safeguard of their peculiar institutions. The problem disappeared atConfederation when what had been Upper and Lower Canada again became separateprovinces.