" A
further change came in the minute control exercised by the
Colonial Office, or rather by the permanent clerks who, in
Charles Buller's phrase, were really "Mr. Mother Country." The
Governor was the local agent of the Colonial Office. He acted on
its instructions and was responsible to it, and to it alone, for
the exercise of the wide administrative powers entrusted to him.
But all these powers, it was believed, would fail in their
purpose if democracy were allowed to grow unchecked in the
colonies themselves. It was an essential part of the colonial
policy of the time to build up conservative social forces among
the people and to give a controlling voice in the local
administration to a nominated and official class. It has been
seen that the statesmen of 1791 looked to a nominated executive
and legislative council, an hereditary aristocracy, and an
established church, to keep the colony in hand. British
legislation fostered and supported a ruling class in the
colonies, and in turn this class was to support British
connection and British control. How this policy, half avowed and
half unconscious, worked out in each of the provinces must now be
recorded.
In Upper Canada party struggles did not take shape until well
after the War of 1812. At the founding of the colony the people
had been very much of one temper and one condition.
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