aristocratic administration, were unlikely to attract the crowd. The work of Sydenham had contributed much to the political education of Canada; popular opinion was now firmer and more self-consistent, and that opinion went directly contrary to the views of Stanley and his supporters. One may find evidence of this in the views of moderates on either side. Harrison, who represented the moderate reforming party in Sydenham's ministry, held that responsible government, in some form or other, was essential, and that French nationalism must also receive concessions. "Looking at the present position of parties," he wrote to Bagot in July, "it may, I think, be safely laid down that, to obtain a working majority in the House of Assembly, it is absolutely necessary that the government should be able to carry with it the bulk of the French-Canadian members.... There is no disguising the fact that the French members possess the power of the country; and he who directs that {134} power, backed by the most efficient means of controlling it, is in a situation to govern the province best."[8] It was his opinion that Bagot should anticipate the coming crisis by calling in Baldwin and the French, before events forced that step on him. On the Conservative side, a moderate man like W. H. Draper, the attorney-general for Upper Canada in Sydenham's ministry, argued in favour of a policy almost identical. While his views tended to oscillate, now to this side, now to that, their general direction was clear. He felt that the ideal condition was one of union between the parties of Western Canada, which would "render the position of the government safer in its dealings with the French-Canadians." But no such union was possible, and Draper, with that honest opportunism which best expressed his mind and capacity, assured Bagot that action in the very teeth of his instructions was the only possible course. "One thing I do not doubt at all," he wrote in July 1842, "and that is that, with the present House of Assembly, you cannot get on without the French, while it is necessary for me at the same time to declare frankly that I cannot sit at the {135} council-board with Mr. Baldwin."[9] In other words, since Draper admitted that the opposition leaders must receive office, and at the same time declared the impossibility of his holding office with them, he was consenting to Cabinet government, not in the restricted form permitted in Lord John Russell's despatches, but after the regular British fashion.