The warmth of feeling and the disorder exhibited in the councils of state and the assembly, met with a ready response in the country. It is only fair to say that many of the gravest disturbances were caused by recent immigrants, more especially by the Irish labourers on the canals in the neighbourhood of Montreal.[66] But the whole community must share in the discredit. The days had not yet ceased when political bills called on adherents of one or other party to assemble "with music and good shillelaghs";[67] and indeed the decade from 1840 to 1850 was distinctly one of political rioting. The election of 1841 was disgraced, more especially in Lower Canada, by very violent strife. In 1843 an Act was deemed necessary "to provide for the calling and orderly holding of public meetings in this province and for the better preservation of the public peace thereat."[68] In the Montreal election of April, 1844, Metcalfe accused both his former inspector-general and the reform candidate of using inflammatory and reckless language, and {68} certainly both then and in November disgraceful riots made the elections no true register of public sentiment. At the very end of the decade, the riots caused by the passing of the "Rebellion Losses" Act, organized, it must be remembered, by the so-called loyal party, endangered the life of a governor-general, and made Montreal no longer possible as the seat of government. One may perhaps over-estimate the importance of these details; for, after all, the communal life of Canada was yet in its extreme youth, and in England itself there were still remnants of the old eighteenth century disorders, with hints of the newer revolutionism. Their importance is rather that they complicated the task of adjusting imperial standards to suit Canadian self-government, and introduced unnecessary errors into the conduct of affairs by the provincial statesmen.